


Culture Shock

by BookBird1497



Series: Spooky Science [3]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: AND GAY, Ghosts, LGBT, Magic, Mexico, Multi, My OCs, Power of Friendship, Rating may go up, Swearing, This will be good, Witch - Freeform, coven - Freeform, dp, i dont wanna spoil the drama later so, is this even a fanfic anymore??, just trust me, oh dear this is going to be a wild ride, uhhh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-05 23:07:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 34
Words: 146,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13398216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BookBird1497/pseuds/BookBird1497
Summary: The worst has come to pass: thanks to Kordelle's revengeful snitching, Dude's father has the location of his long lost children and is hellbent on taking them back home to Mexico. He doesn't manage to reclaim both twins, however, and in a small twist of fate Ariadna is on her own, stuck between a magical rock and an undead hard place. Ghosts and witches are natural enemies, but the only person she could possibly ask for help is both a ghost and tangled up in her own serious problems.Tensions between Relle Phantom and the city are growing, demanding her undivided attention even while it's being drawn south of the border. How can she focus on Bailey Lake's new mandates against ghosts when her best friend and his mother have been kidnapped? What's left of the motley crew will have to race down to Mexico to save Dude and Maria, but can they make it there in time to make a difference?Choices of the life-changing variety wait in the wings for our favorite teens-- everything depends on them.This is why we can't have nice things.Please enjoy, and leave lots of comments and kudos!PM me for any concerns you may have regarding representation and/or content.





	1. Recap

He would understand. He had to. Maybe not today-- maybe not even for a long while. But he would have to come around eventually. 

From the phone in his hand came a voice accented with Spanish. "You will have my eternal gratitude if you are right about this. What did you say your name was, again?"

"Endellion," he said softly, though his grip on the phone tightened. A shadow of doubt crept across him, instilling a cold dread within his insides. Somehow, despite the rumors he had heard about Estrellas del Dia, this man-- Ricardo, Dude's father-- didn't seem nearly as threatening as Kordelle had first imagined.  "Our coven is very small and sheltered in the north, so I wouldn't be surprised if you haven't heard of Loch Domhainn."

"Ohh, no, no, of course I know of your coven!" Ricardo said in a chipper voice. "Fan Liu is still the leader, right? I haven't spoken with her in some time, but we've known one another for many years." 

"Well, yes, she is still the coven leader. Should I pass on a message to her for you?" 

A soft shuffling sound filtered through the phone's speaker. Was Ricardo pushing papers around on a desk, perhaps? "No, thank you, I will contact her on my own. But, tell me, how did an Australian boy like yourself end up in Loch Domhainn? Seems that you're pretty far from home."

A ball settled in Kordelle's throat then, obstructing his breathing and forcing him to blink tears back before they could properly well up in his boulder opal eyes. "... So is your son. Oh, speak of the devil."

Thank goodness, Dude had finally found the calling card and responded. He walked with purpose down the sidewalk, his head held high and his shoulders squared back. Kordelle's hiding place behind a faintly glowing tree offered him a view of Dude's expression: firm, unwavering, and a bit on the irritated side. "I know you're there, Kord. I can sense your presence like it's nothing." 

Dude's voice was reined in just enough to keep it from carrying too far. After all, even as the roads outside of the competition venue were quiet-- most of the attendants had yet to think of leaving for the night-- there could be ears listening from anywhere and everywhere. Kordelle lowered the phone from his ear, concealing the device in the sleeve of his black jacket as he stepped into plain sight. 

"Dude, you used magic in your routine," Kordelle said after a long, tense moment of silence. Until he spoke, only the wind and distant sounds of cars echoed across the sidewalk. 'Wow, what a way to break the ice. Great start, Endellion.' 

"We weren't caught--" he started to protest, which was when Endellion slid the outdated phone out of his sleeve and held it up for the other boy to see. It was open, its small, square screen alight. 

"Never mind that. Listen, I've been doing some thinking, and after what I saw in your performance, I'm sure of it now.

"That ghost has its hooks far deeper in you than I could have ever predicted.

"I need you to trust me on this. 

"If you won't believe me, then believe someone who definitely knows what he's talking about." 

Dude took the phone when Kordelle offered it to him. The pause he took before he actually held it up to the side of his head said more than a thousand words ever could on what he thought about trusting Kordelle, but that was what Kordelle expected. If their friendship was shot to hell this badly already, the best thing to do was strip it all away like an infection. Only then could any new friendship grow back on top of it. 

The phone-- a burner, nothing that Endellion was attached to in any way-- made an impressively loud sound when Dude's burning fist spiked it into the unyielding concrete between their feet. Slivers of circuitry and black plastic fanned out in a wide array, and the scuffed battery bounced its way into the grass. " _ **NO!**_ " 

It almost looked like he would fall over-- he swayed uncertainly on his feet and took a step back to keep his balance. A limp hand reached up to his forehead, ghosting over the sweat-slickened skin for all of a second before it curled into a fist. Then it was at his side in a forceful gesture, matching its twin. He whirled on Kordelle, his black opal eyes positively feral. " _ **You**_ \-- what the  _fuck_ did you just  _do?_ " 

"You'll thank me for this later, Dude." Even to his own ears, Kordelle's confidence sounded tinny and disposable. "He's not really as bad as I thought he was." Maybe the assurance would help the older boy with making his inevitable transition from normal human to witch-in-training. 

Still, that fire in Dude's eyes-- hadn't Kordelle seen it in someone else once before?-- was a dangerous one, and Kordelle had enough self-preservation to know that it was time to go. He had done what he had gone there to do. His ponytail charm jingling softly, Kordelle took a step back and to his right, letting the shadows swallow him whole. All too suddenly, the floor-length mirror in Fan Liu's basement study was under his fingertips, its cool glass sending shivers of frosty energy up though his veins. 

Endellion stepped back and drew his lower lip in between his teeth, worrying the tender skin. He should have stayed, should have said more, should have explained things better before springing that life-changing surprise on his friend. 

One day, Dude would understand, though. 

He had to. 


	2. Midnight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My Spanish comes from Google Translate, so please let me know if I screw anything up!

They had made plans to celebrate after the competition. The thought of ice cream and spending more time in close proximity had appealed to all, but those hopes were dashed into as many pieces as the phone had been against the sidewalk. 

Camry had never seen him the way she and Saoirse found him then: the palpable fear in his eyes was mirrored perfectly by the way his hands trembled and his breathing came in ragged, uneven bursts. Cam was shaking, too, but for different reasons. Kordelle must have been nearby if she was smelling asphodel and sensing a familiar but fading aura on the air. As much as she knew it wasn't real, her scarred tongue felt like it was on fire. Saoirse drew the other girl into her side without a second thought. "What are you talking about? Your dad knows where you are?  _How?_ " 

"That-- That  _fucker_ , he called and told him where we are," he ground out, averting his eyes to the remains of the phone that had betrayed him so succinctly. "He ratted us out! Why would he  _do_ that? I... Oh,  _dios_ , ¿que voy a hacer ahora?" 

Suffice to say, their general mood of pleasant success and accomplishment had evaporated faster than water poured on an embarrassed Relle Phantom. "We have to tell your mom," Saoirse realized. Her outstretched hand withdrew, then moved to cup the back of Camry's head. The shorter girl had turned her face into Saoirse's shoulder and was trying to concentrate on taking slower, deeper breaths of air untainted by asphodel perfume. "Maybe she has a plan for what to do in case this happens." 

"The last time, we packed up and went across, like, half a dozen state lines," he groaned. His hands were over his eyes while his head fell back. "I can't do that again! What about school? What about  _you_  guys?" 

"Hey, it'll be alright," Saoirse said quickly, trying to keep her tone mellow and placating. Her hand moved from Camry's hair and extended toward him, beckoning him closer. "C'mere."  

He responded slowly, shuffling forward and taking the offered hand in his own. She yanked him in with a surprising strength and braced him around the shoulders, pressing him into a soft embrace. "You're gonna do what you have to do to keep your family safe, and you're not gonna worry about anything or anyone else. It'll be alright. We'll always be here for you." 

Though he didn't look down to see it for himself, one of Camry's shivering arms sneaked its way over to hug him as well, pressing against the middle of his back and solidifying his place in their trio's bond. The tension in his posture evaporated little by little at the contact, and he hugged back after half of a moment's pause. He smelled, Camry noted, like an odd combination of sweat and the burnt dust of the stage's lights; such a familiar picture was brought to mind from her childhood that her panic was swept away and out to sea in record time. 

They couldn't stay that way all night, however, and with a melancholic sigh he withdrew from them a fraction of an inch. "I have to go. And tell my mom what happened." 

Saoirse nodded, resolute and encouraging despite how the implications obviously pained her. "Do you want us to go with you?" she asked, resting her hand on his shoulder. Camry nodded in agreement, having looked up and gotten her breathing back into a steady pace. 

"No, it's okay," Dude said. Under the pale blue light of the glowing trees in front of and behind them, his black opal eyes were shinier than usual. "If she panics..." 

An impulse that he thought he had gotten control of once and for all surged up from the marrow in his bones then, and before he could think twice to subdue it, he had pressed a chaste peck on Saoirse's cheek and Camry's temple in rapid succession. "I... have to go," he said again. Detaching himself from their arms, he hurried off down the sidewalk lit only by the trees and, eventually, the electric lights shining through the venue's tall front windows. 

The summer air wasn't all that brisk to begin with, but a shiver ran down both girls' spines as they silently watched him go. Camry's right hand wandered up to her face, and her fingertips ghosted over the spot where he had kissed her. What the hell were these butterflies doing, fluttering in her stomach all of a sudden? "Seersh... There's gotta be  _something_ we can do about this. I can protect them--!" 

The grip around her waist tightened in response, and the hand that Saoirse had pressed to her own cheek dropped to her side. "These are more witches, and-- and you almost  _died_ the last time you tangled with one." 

"Well," she started to say in protest, but the words petered out on her scarred tongue. "I mean... Okay, but-- but this isn't fair! We can't just let his awful father come in and-- what do you think he's going to do?" 

Saoirse hummed a soft, singular note of confusion. "I have no idea. But maybe we have enough time to prepare." 

The Hinojosas left with little explanation and in such a rush that Dude's silver trophy was left behind without a second thought. The prize money remained in his jacket's pocket, however, and he managed to throw one last look over his shoulder at his best friends before disappearing around a street corner. They were too far away to hear what she was saying, but Maria was talking impressively fast in Spanish, her hands positively flying with the effort of keeping up in sign language for Ariadna's benefit. 

When he looked back over his shoulder at them, Camry ran a few yards ahead and cupped her hands around her mouth. "You'd  _better_ call me if something comes up!" she yelled at the top of her lungs. 

He was gone around the corner before he could respond. 

A bitter, anguished taste flooded Saoirse's mouth, putting a pained expression on her face. She reached for her girlfriend and hugged her close from behind, wrapping her arms around Camry's toned waist. The shorter girl leaned back automatically into the contact, reacting to it as naturally as she always did. "Are you cold?" Camry whispered, her voice hoarse with emotions she couldn't tamp down. 

"No," Saoirse whispered back through a curtain of blonde hair. "Just... a weird feeling in my gut."

"... Mine, too." 

~~

Later that night, when their digital clocks read 2:09 am in sync, Saoirse received a text that made her phone vibrate in her hands. Unable to sleep a wink since the new development regarding Dude's family situation, she had resigned herself to eventually sleeping in as late as her mother would allow and drinking plenty of coffee in the late morning. For now, she was lying in bed and browsing the internet, updating various social media platforms as she went along.

**You awake?**

A soft smile quirked one corner of her lips.  _Yeah..._  she wrote back, her thumbs flying over the small, dimly lit screen. _Can't sleep either?_

**No...  
** I tried to text dude too but he must be too busy  
Or asleep  
Either way  
I can't get this bs out of my head 

_Me neither  
And to think that_ \-- Saoirse deleted that thought quickly as she realized that it wouldn't be a good idea to even mention the witch that had tried to do away with Camry those few months ago. Her panic attack, while it had been overcome rather suddenly, was probably still fresh in her mind and humming along her frayed nerves.

 **Can you get dressed and take a walk with me maybe??**   **I'll come pick you up**

An interesting proposition.  _Sure, that sounds good. Where would you wanna walk to?_

**Anywhere**

Good enough for Saoirse. She threw on the same clothes she had been wearing during the previous day and wrapped her hair effortlessly. All of her makeup had been washed off hours ago, but she wouldn't bring herself to feel self-conscious about it. With or without it, she knew that Camry would still call her gorgeous or--

"Hey, beautiful," Relle Phantom whispered as she lifted the window open high enough for her to shimmy through. "What's a lovely place like this doing in a girl like you?" 

Saoirse's snort would have been loud enough to wake the whole house if she hadn't clapped her hand over her mouth in time to smother it. " _Wow_ , Cam," she giggled. Relle's pleasantly mellow blush across her cheeks glowed in the dark and cast a faint orange light that only enhanced the ethereal sphalerite of her eyes.  

"So, any requests for where to go?" Cam asked with a grin and a sweeping gesture toward the open window. "The city is your oyster." 

"Well," Saoirse mumbled, tapping her chin in thought. "I'll bet the lake shore is pretty nice right now. No people, and it's a pretty warm night-- not that I'll ever have to worry about being cold with you around, of course."

"You've got that right," she said. Taking her girlfriend's hand, Camry crawled back outside and helped Saoirse up and out, where a path of faintly glowing white tiles marked a path for just the two of them. "To the lake!"

"Shhh," Saoirse giggled again in a weak attempt to hush her. Sneaking out always left such a giddy storm of butterflies flapping at her insides, and it was hard to stay quiet so no one could catch them in the act. 

With fingers entwined and a gentle airyness buoying up their moods, the two teens made their way in a straight line toward the lake, which only took about ten minutes to reach without the hindrance of being earthbound. When they got there, Camry made gradual stair steps down to the rocky shore and changed back into her human self upon setting down. They stopped for a moment then to look out over the lake's rippling silver surface. It was a relatively clear night; only a handful of thin, wispy clouds made an effort to blot out the stars and the seven moons. Two were waxing in this stage of the monthly cycle, so while the shoreline was still visible and they wouldn't need flashlights to get around, the darkness was a comforting blanket around their shoulders. 

Pebbles and thick sand crunched underfoot, echoing too loudly in the silence of their silvery world. Across the lake, whose surface was illuminated in broken rays of white light, unseen mountains rose up to scrape the black sky. Their proximity to the city obscured all but the brightest of the stars twinkling from so far away. Saoirse happily drew closer to Camry's side and smiled at the gentle breeze playing with the trailing ends of her hijab.

 "This is nice," she commented after a few moments of amicable quiet. "I wish being at the lake was always this calm." 

"Me, too," Cam agreed absentmindedly. Her gaze, after taking in its fill of their surroundings, was being drawn back toward the towering buildings of the city. Its glowing haze was dim, like a flag flown at halfmast instead of at the top. 

The quiet resumed between them as what few words Saoirse had prepared faded from her tongue. Then, as she opened her mouth to try and start a conversation that had been weighing on her conscience for a remarkably long time, Camry surged up and cupped her hand to Saoirse's lips. "Shhh," the blonde girl hissed gently. A faint tingle of warmth traveled from the contact to the very tips of her extremities; past experience taught her that they were both now standing invisibly on the uneven beach. 

Saoirse, freeing her face from her girlfriend's hand, turned to look back over her shoulder and noticed what had made Camry so tense in the span of an instant. Blue and red lights flashed one after the other in a never-ending pattern, reflecting off the stretch of lake water behind them. Two officers got out of their marked car and sauntered over to a darkly-painted pickup truck that had been parked too close to the water's edge. One shined a flashlight into its cabin while the other scuttled around back to examine the bed. A bundle of wires was stretched taut from the back as it extended toward the lake and was submerged beneath the lapping waves. 

"Not again," they just barely heard the first officer groan in exasperation. "How many times is she gonna do this?" 

"I guess warnings aren't going to cut it at this point," the second officer mused as he poked at the cables leading into the lake. Before Camry could stop her, Saoirse's curiosity took hold and she guided Camry closer, remaining invisible through their linked hands. From a new angle, they both could see a bulky crank rigged to the pickup's bed, which allowed the wires to be retracted or released. A suitcase and archaic computer were beside it, open and booted up. 

'It's like a science experiment' flashed through Saoirse's mind. She frowned; who would be doing science experiments in the middle of the night on the lake? 

 _Why_ would they be doing it?   

"Wanna bring her in this time? Could bag all of this as evidence," Officer #2 suggested. He trailed a hand over the equipment, the expression on his face pensive and more than a little tired. 

Officer #1 groaned again as he redirected his flashlight beam to the water's surface. "Too much paperwork. Besides, she might've gotten the permits for... whatever it is she's doing." 

Such an idea made his partner snort in derision, but he didn't push the matter and instead pressed the power button on the computer. It flickered out with a dull whine. Almost immediately, a red bulb on the crank burst to life, and the cables started to retract, pulling up whoever or whatever was meandering around the bottom of the lake. In just a handful of minutes, the slow ascent ended with a tall woman dressed in a wet suit and sporting scuba gear standing up in the surf. 

In a flurry of anger, she wrenched the face mask and snorkel off of herself and nearly flung it back into the lake. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" she demanded, her tone shrill and incredulous. "That data is  _vital_ to my research! You cost me an entire night's worth of sampling!" 

"Ms. Rheasson, we're gonna need to see some permits," Officer #1 sighed. This exchange must have been routine at this point if he sounded so bored with the confrontation-- not to mention that he wasn't at all fazed by the woman's anger. 

"Vehicles aren't allowed to park this far on the beach," Officer #2 chirped, obviously taking delight in the torment he had caused her through such a simple act. "Still think you're above the law?" 

"What I'm working on will revolutionize our world's understanding of ghosts and where they come from!" Ms. Rheasson belted as she stomped across the pebbled beach to stand defiantly in front of the policemen. "I  _need_ access to that portal in the lake-- it's the only chance we have for learning how to protect ourselves." 

#2 snickered and folded his arms over his chest. "You really think you can do the job of an entire government all by yourself, Ms. Rheasson? We're getting tired of coming down here to chase you away." 

"Please, Ms. Rheasson, just go home for the night," #1 sighed. "This is your last warning before we start making arrests." He had a pad of paper in hand and finished scribbling something on it. The sharp sound of the paper being torn off cut through the darkness, louder than it should have been, and he pressed the warning into her livid hand. 

They walked away then, mumbling something about paperwork and coffee runs all the way to their squad car. Ms. Rheasson, with the surf lapping at her heels, crumpled the slip of paper up and hurled it back into the water when both men were gone. Her posture was taut, roiling with anger she must have wanted to vocalize. "God  _damn_ it," she ground out, breathing hard and visibly gritting her teeth. 

Saoirse felt Camry tugging on her hand, urging her to walk away, but she paused to keep looking. Her individual features were almost impossible to distinguish in the pale moonslight, but something about this woman poked at the back of Saoirse's brain. "I think I've seen her before," she whispered down into a head of invisible blonde hair. "After ghost fights, I've noticed her running around. What if she was collecting samples of ghost energy then, too?" 

"For real?" Camry, who was usually too busy with disappearing from the scene to take notice of strangely-acting bystanders, whispered back. 

Almost immediately, a harsh beeping slashed through the calmed atmosphere and made all three people jump out of their skin. The scientist lunged for the open pickup's bed and grabbed a boxy device, which she held out while slowly spinning in a circle. Was she trying to detect something? 

"I know someone's there!" she called out. That anger in her voice from before dissipated, and she spoke like she was trying to encourage and placate a wild animal. "Please, I don't want to hurt you. Can you just come and talk to me for a few minutes? I have so many questions, and I want to help." 

Camry tugged harder on Saoirse's hand, and this time she complied with being led off the beach and back toward the road. To keep their footsteps quiet, Camry conjured a path of smooth tiles that hovered only a few inches off of the rocky sand. The steps were as invisible as they were, which they hoped was something the scientist couldn't see with her equipment. They heard her call out again after a moment, though the distance strained her words through the wind. "My name is Avery-- I'm unarmed, too!"

When they felt like they were far enough to talk freely, Camry dropped the invisibility and breathed out a heavy breath. "Whoa, that was close. What do you think all of that was about?" 

"No idea," Saoirse answered. "But if she's researching ghosts, we need to keep an eye out for her. Can't have her finding out your secret identity or something." 

"True," Cam agreed wholeheartedly. "Well, that "adventure" was kind of a bust. What should we do now?" 

Neither girl wanted to let go of the other's hand, so they continued to walk aimlessly, entwined pleasantly and chatting about whatever floated through their minds in the moment. Right about the time when Saoirse could start to feel a dull soreness creep up into the soles of her feet, Cam fell silent midsentence and whipped her head back to look over her shoulder. "What's up?" Saoirse asked softly. Her heart pounded in her chest with practiced intensity; was it a ghost attack? More scientists? 

"No, I just... had a weird feeling. On the back of my neck," she explained in halting sentences. "You don't think we're being watched, do you?" 

"Ohhh, I don't wanna think about something like that while we're wandering the city at night, hon," Saoirse said with a grimace. "Should we call it now and go home?" 

"Sure, sure," Camry, still distracted and staring into the distance behind them, said. On the road they traveled, there were no glowing trees or lit storefronts to guide their way. The lakeside part of town was older, more peaceful in its simplicity but less advanced in its furnishings. Very few cars were on the streets at such a late hour, but once in a while someone would dart into view and disappear into an alley or around the corner of a building. Both girls supposed it was a natural occurence and tried not to think too much on it. After all, what chance would an attacker have against Relle Phantom? 

"Do you mind if we go to one more place first?" 

An interesting question, and one that Saoirse wasn't adamantly against. She hummed an agreement and let herself be led along as they climbed higher into the sky, following a trail of white light to a poorly-lit section of town. Old, grey buildings rose up to meet them, scratching the sky at twenty or thirty stories. Most of the lights in the apartment windows were either off or shrouded by drawn curtains, but Camry knew exactly where they were going. In all honesty, Saoirse could have easily predicted their coming to this location, and not an atom of her being was surprised in the least. 

Their intended target was the third-floor window that faced the street corner. The glass was locked tight, but the curtains were pulled back and electric lights glowed inside. As Saoirse and Camry walked closer, they could see people moving silently back and forth across the cluttered bedroom. Ariadna, Dude, Ari, Dude-- they were gathering up their belongings at a frantic pace, stuffing necessities into expectant luggage wordlessly. Signing was probably too much of a chore with full arms. 

"I can't just let this happen," Camry murmured after a heavy moment of tension. Neither girl knew what to do: could they jump in and help them pack, or try to convince them to stand their ground? What if they found somewhere within the city to hide the Hinojosas until the threat had passed? 

Saoirse didn't need the moonslight to see the tears rolling down Camry's cheeks. She angrily wiped them away with the heel of both palms and set her jaw. "I oughta  _destroy_ Kordelle for doing this to them." 

"No, no, no," Saoirse sighed at that. She put both hands on her girlfriend's shoulders and gently forced her to look up into her pink tourmaline eyes. "We both know how that would end, Cam, and it's not going to happen that way if I have anything to say about it."

"He's running Dude and his family out of town!" Camry exclaimed too loudly for the hour, and her voice echoed through the spaces between the apartment buildings. "Shouldn't we at the very least make him regret messing with him? With  _us?_ " 

Saoirse cupped the right side of Camry's face then and swiped her thumb tenderly over the triangular scar on her cheekbone. It was damp with drying smears of saltwater, so the pad of her thumb stuttered across its rougher surface. "You know I want to make him pay, Cam, but... I don't know what I would do if I saw him anywhere near you again. We're better off with keeping our distances and sticking to fighting ghosts, not fighting witches." 

Right at the end of her sentence, a rusty clicking sound made their hearts leap into their throats before they turned in unison to look for the source. Dude lifted the sash of the window and leaned out as far as he dared, a look of surprise dropping his jaw ever so slightly. "What are you guys  _doing_ here so late?" he asked, trying to keep his tone low enough to not disturb the other tenants. 

"Just... checking in," Saoirse answered awkwardly. Was she suddenly blushing because they'd been caught in the act of practically stalking him? "Wanting to make sure you're all safe."

Ariadna appeared behind him and gave them a withdrawn wave "Hello," before going back to her packing. Dude watched them as the two girls scurried closer and drew even with the window's altitude so they could all talk easily. "You don't really think he would be here already, do you?" 

The way he said it had the intention of a half-hearted joke, but it didn't land. No one expected it to. 

How in the world had things spun so out of control in the span of a single evening? "Maybe," Camry replied. "We couldn't sleep, though. Too much to... think about." Her hand came up to clutch her other elbow in a pose that made herself look smaller and meek. A tinge of redness had permeated the whites of her eyes from the tears she hadn't been able to hold back a few moments ago. 

"If..." Saoirse started to say, then paused to recollect her scattered thoughts. "When you all are safe-- you've got someplace safe to stay, and all that-- you'll let us know, right? We're still keeping in touch with you." She meant it as a question, but it came out more like a statement than anything else. 

He managed a smile at that. "Of course we are. I won't know when I can contact you guys after we leave, but I won't stay gone for too long."

"You shouldn't have to stay gone at all," Camry grumbled then, clenching her hands into fists at her sides. "How about I punch all of them in the face and we call it a night?" 

Despite the dread and melancholy coiled in his gut, a snort escaped him then, and Dude bowed his head a little to laugh. His shoulders shook with quiet giggles. "Thanks for the offer, Cam, but I think we're gonna have to stick with Plan A for a while." 

"No, no, no, this is, like, Plan  _V_ ," she insisted, darting nearer and throwing her arms around his neck. Dude wobbled a little but didn't fall when he returned the embrace immediately. "You could stay at my house. Maybe my ghostliness will help hide you guys, or... or..." 

"It's too dangerous," he mumbled, looking up to meet Saoirse's watery eyes. His own were pretty damp, try as he did to blink back the wave of emotions. "Kordelle was one thing, but my dad's a coven  _leader_. That's gotta be a whole 'nother ballpark of bad news." 

For the second time that night, all three teens hugged one another as tightly as they dared, refusing for as long as they could to let go. No one spoke for the longest time. Eventually, though, they had to part, and they did it tearfully with their reluctant goodbyes. When Camry and Saoirse had turned their backs to the window to start their journey back to the Mahadeo home, Joaquín resisted the urge to... to do something. To call them back, to hurry after them somehow, to give a voice to the ache that burrowed itself in his bone marrow and wrapped squeezing tendrils around his heart. 

Instead, he shut and latched the window.

It wasn't until around four-thirty in the morning that he, Ari, and their mother fell into their beds surrounded by cardboard boxes and fell asleep, content with the knowledge that their progress was good enough for them to leave town sometime later in the morning. To stay awake long enough to finish packing, Ariadna had chugged a caffeinated soda, and no matter how much she lay in bed with her eyes closed, sleep would not take her. She finally gave up around six o' clock and got up, sparing her occasionally twitching brother a glance before taking a seat at the window. Ari opened it halfway and leaned out to catch sight of the sixth and seventh moons sinking below the horizon. Maybe she could still catch the end of their nightly stories if she listened to them now. As it were, traces of orange and pink were starting to color the sky to the east. It was still summer, after all.

Ariadna closed her eyes and breathed deeply, allowing her senses to stretch toward the heavens and breach the barrier that fixed their world within a constantly shifting present. Sounds of the past trickled down to her ears, filling the spaces of her brain with information that she didn't know what to do with beyond giving a simple acknowledgement. The first indication that something was off came with the rumbling of a high-powered engine and the phantom vibrations of machinery. She shrugged them off easily enough; the moons saw more than their fair share of planes flying through the night sky. 

However, those vibrations were a little bit strange. She sometimes imagined the physical sensations that she expected would accompany the sounds she heard, but these ones didn't seem all that fictional... Her white opal eyes flashed open and she flattened her palm against the wall beside the window. Those vibrations  _weren't_ her imagination-- someone was knocking at the front door!

Her heart seized in her chest, stuttering the flow of oxygen to her brain, and before she knew what she was doing she had lunged for her jacket hanging by the door to her and her brother's room. She yanked her arms through the sleeves, paying no mind to the unfamiliar feeling of the cloth against her skin, and was back at the window before her better judgment could take control. 

Dude was sitting up by then, too, and staring at the closed door. Just beyond it lay the hallway, which led to the front door that... was being opened. His touch conduit could sense vibrations with hundreds of times more accuracy when he pressed his hand to the floor; their mother in the next room over was slamming her feet against the floor in an effort to get up quicker. 

Who was at the door, then?

The two twins shared wide-eyed glances before Joaquín was on his feet and pushing Ariadna toward the window. A fire escape was only a short drop from the ledge, and the weathered metal steps led down to a spot on the ground where bushes could hide someone from the road. Ariadna squeaked with the half-hearted attempt to tell him to stop, to ask him what he was doing, but he signed "Go!" and effectively silenced her. 

Ari and Joaquín slid the window open together, trying to be as quiet as possible without sacrificing speed, and she threw a leg over the sill. He flattened a hand against her upper back for stability, but pulled away when he heard something. Footsteps? Voices? Ari didn't know, and right then she didn't especially want to know. 

"Wait," she murmured, looking back. A sharp tug on her lungs pulled a shallow gasp from her lips, and the world stopped moving. 

There had been a gentle, early morning breeze blowing against her face when she first opened the window; that was dead now, frozen in place as time had been put on pause. Well, maybe it wasn't a perfect pause. As she looked in all directions, she could still detect the barest traces of movement, like a snail's journey through maple syrup. Ariadna could see Joaquín reaching for the window as if to close it, and the knob on their bedroom door was turning at an agonizingly slow pace. 

She knew what she had to do, but that didn't make doing it any less painful. Ari got her other leg out the window and pushed off, free falling the five or six feet to the fire escape's nearest landing. She took the steps down two at a time, paying no mind to the metal slats biting harshly against the soles of her bare feet, and started off in a desperate run down the sidewalk. Her only indication that time had resumed was when the first sputtering cars of morning traffic picked up their pace and zoomed past her, sending waves of wind against her legs. Well-worn pajama shorts and a T-shirt under her jacket didn't make for the most conventional outfit for going out on the town. 

It was a good thing she vaguely knew where she was going. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boy, we are jumping _right_ into the action! Credit for the creation/design for Avery Rheasson goes to WhiteLion_Angel on Wattpad
> 
> Please leave a kudos and a comment! They make my entire day so much better, no matter the circumstances. See you all in the next chapter!


	3. Deaf Pleas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Camry says the fuck word a lot.
> 
>  
> 
> (BTW if there are two or more Spanish-speaking people talking to one another, unless it's said otherwise, it's pretty safe to assume they're speaking in Spanish :3c)

If it hadn't already been so close to when her alarm clock was set to go off, Sadie Dowell would have been very upset to hear such a harsh and insistent knocking on her front door. As it was, she glared at the display beside her bed and groaned. 6:28 am? Couldn't the intrusion have waited for another fifteen minutes? Sleep is precious, especially to someone who works in front of a camera. 

When the knocking didn't stop after a minute, she firmly patted her sleeping husband's arm a couple of times and swung her legs out of bed. Dressed in slippers and with a robe pulled on over her silky pajamas, Sadie tried and failed to suppress a yawn behind her hand. Well, at least the colors from the sunrise were pretty to look at. She passed a window on her way to the door and faintly smiled at the rare sight. 

"Alright, alright, I'm coming," she grumbled, unlocking the door and swinging it open. To her surprise, Ariadna stood there, ruddy-cheeked and panting hard. Her fist was poised to keep knocking, the knuckles of that hand bright red from the constant and repetitive impact. She was dressed in only pajama shorts, a T-shirt, and a baggy jacket that swallowed her thin frame in its folds. But what struck Sadie most of all was Ari's expression.

There were dried, smeared tear tracks making trails down her cheeks, and it looked as if more were on their way. Sadie didn't see such desperation and fear very often, especially not in the face of a girl as young and innocent-looking as Ariadna, and it shook her to her core. 

"Oh, no," she gasped, her hand flying up to cover her mouth. "Sweetie-- what's going on?" 

Ariadna gestured emphatically, not quite signing anything but trying to convey a sense of urgency. 'Oh, right' Sadie remembered as she lowered her hand so the teen could read her lips. She repeated the question carefully, and Ariadna saw. 

"Please, Camry-- help," she panted, stabbing a thumb back over her shoulder and waving her hands back and forth. 

"Come inside, sweetie," Sadie said in response to that, slinging an arm around Ari's shoulders to guide her over the threshold. When she looked back to shut the door, she noticed two spots of blood on the porch and let out another sharp gasp. "Oh, honey, you aren't wearing any shoes! You're hurt-- Mason, get up! Go wake up Camry!" 

Urgent shuffling came from the master bedroom down the hall before Mason appeared, looking more than a little bit rumpled and bleary. "Huh? Wha's-- oh, Ariadna? What's going on?" he mumbled, rubbing a hand down the length of his face once. "It's six-thirty in the morning." 

"I know, dear, but go wake up Camry right now," Sadie said quickly. "I don't know specifics yet." 

"Okay." Mason nodded and took the stairs up to the second floor two at a time, his feet's pounding echoing hollowly through the large house. "Cam? Honey? Wake up. Something's going on."

In the meantime, Sadie pointed to herself, then to Ari, and pantomimed picking her up while mouthing that intention. Ari nodded and allowed herself to be carried into the kitchen, where she was settled down on a clear section of counter space. How easy it was to carry the girl surprised Sadie, to say the least, and she made a mental note to invite the Hinojosas over for dinner more often. She then hurried to one of the bathrooms to gather up what medical supplies they had begun to hoard for Relle Phantom's sake. 

Small drops of blood ran down the arch of Ariadna's dangling feet and dripped from her big toes to the linoleum floor. She must have been in pain from her injuries, but if she was it didn't register in her expression. In fact, a vacant, far-off stare dominated her features more than anything else. When Sadie returned, her arms full of gauze and disinfectant, she set it aside and got down on her knees to get a good look at what she was dealing with. There was plenty of dirt embedded in the scratches, and if she squinted she might have made out a little shard of glass pricking into the arch of her left foot, but the cuts were superficial and only bleeding so much because Ariadna hadn't once stopped running since she had begun.

Sadie clicked her tongue against the back of her teeth and rose, using gestures and small, gentle touches to guide her patient toward the sink. They didn't make it that far by the time Camry appeared in the doorway. Disheveled was an understatement: her blonde hair stuck to her lips from dried drool, and the drawstring of her baggy sweatpants had come undone, allowing one side to slip down on her hips. Darker circles under her eyes looked remarkably like bruises, as if she had just come back from a fight, and the bleariness in her iolite eyes bore a striking resemblance to her father's own natural hesitancy to wake up. 

The instant Camry and Ariadna made eye contact, that bleariness evaporated. The shock registering on her face quickly shifted into an anguished dread, and Camry parted her lips as if to ask if her fears were true. She didn't need to as Ariadna nodded and sniffed, trying to force back her own despair. 

"Fuck," she whispered, and her eyes shifted to sphalerite before the real transformation could begin.

" _Excuse me_ , young lady?" Sadie barked, whipping her head around to stare at her foul-mouthed daughter. 

" _Fuck, fuck, **fuck!**_ " Camry shrieked, and she was gone, out the door and already changed into Relle Phantom. Mason reeled back, his arms whirling at his sides to try and keep his balance, as she blurred past him and nearly knocked the front door off its hinges in an effort to get out as fast as inhumanly possible.

Relle didn't bother with conserving her energy as she ran, liberally using fast-forward tiles to skip over long distances between buildings and over streets. Her core was running hot, hotter than she usually let it become, and this excess heat manifested in the smoke curling up from her clenched fists and between her grit teeth. This was wrong, this was wrong, this was  _wrong_ \-- how did their father arrive so quickly? Their location had only been leaked  _hours_ before! 

" _Please, please, please_ ," she heard herself chanting into the wind. " _No, no, no, no_." 

She arrived at the apartment complex in record time and dove through the closed window, intangibly passing between the panes without a second thought. She rolled to her feet and ran into the narrow hallway, all the while keeping her fists up and charged with green ghostly energy. There was no way she was going to let this happen without a fight. 

"Dude! Maria!" she cried out, looking in every direction for a sign that they were there. "Hello?  _Anybody?_ " 

She could see that the front door was open and still, and all of the sealed moving boxes were undisturbed in various spots around the apartment. Relle held her breath and forced herself to listen for-- for what? For  _anything!_  

"No, no," she whispered, a gloved hand fizzling out and clapping over her trembling lips. "No. No." 

It was too quiet. Nothing moved, and only the refrigerator running made a sound she distantly registered. She sucked in a shaky breath and coughed it out immediately; the air had a tainted taste to it, one she had come to associate with malevolent magic. "Oh, god, please, no," she whimpered. 

They were gone. She had been too late. 

Relle numbly shut and locked the front door, then pressed her forehead against it for the span of five seconds to catch her breath. Her hand, as if controlled by someone else, reached into her pocket and pulled out her cell. She pressed 2 on her speed dial and waited, clutching the phone in a grip that was far too tight. Its ringing drowned out the rest of the world around her until-- "We're sorry, but your call could not be completed at this time." 

" _ **Fucking**_ \--!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. Harsh stomping from the corridor beyond cut through her anger, and just as someone started to pound on the front door and yell at her to be quiet, she was lifting the window's sash and jumping back out into the air. On her way back to Dude and Ari's room, some small part of her brain told her to grab a pair of Ariadna's shoes, so she snagged what she assumed were her well-worn sneakers before jumping. 

Back out in the open, she pressed 1 on her speed dial and started leaping from tile to tile, taking the same fast-forward steps back in the direction she had come from. Camry almost feared that she would get the same message as before, or have to leave a message in Saoirse's inbox, but her girlfriend picked up after the sixth ring. 

Saoirse groaned and sounded like she was making the barest effort to sit up. "Hey, love, what's--?" 

"They're gone," Cam cut her off suddenly, and as if voicing reality had broken a spell put on her, the tears started falling down her cheeks. "He-- He came this morning. He  _took them_ \--!"

" _What? No!_ " Saoirse screeched, fully awake at that point. "They're all gone?" 

"N-No," she sniffled, using the back of her phone hand to futilely wipe at her eyes. "No, I-- Ariadna's at my house. I wouldn't have found out this soon otherwise." 

"Then go back home right now!" Saoirse exclaimed. "He might find her there! You've gotta protect Ari, at the very least!"

"Fuck," Camry whispered before hanging up and devoting all her concentration into running. Saoirse was right: the very least she could do in this situation was make sure that Ariadna was safe. If she had failed Dude and Maria, then she wouldn't fail Ari.

~~~

Dude had no idea how Ariadna had disappeared out of the window so quickly, but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Maybe she would reach Camry in time to get help. If anything, she might be safe. He slammed the window shut and latched it before whirling around to see the door knob turning open. Against his expectations, his mother stood in the doorway, a sullen look of defeat on her face. 

"... Come meet your father, hijo," she whispered. Her eyes darted all around the room an instant later, but when Joaquín shook his head indicatively, she nodded and kept her mouth shut. 

He followed her out of the room and down the hallway, all the while dragging his feet and refusing to look ahead. Anything to postpone this fateful meeting would've been preferable to getting it over with. Along his trip through the hallway, he banged his little toe against the side of a cardboard box and muttered a sharp curse in Spanish in time with a couple of hops.

Inevitably, though, they reached the cramped dining room and kitchen, where a total stranger stood with his arms folded idly over his chest. What Dude noticed first were his clothes: this man, Ricardo, was dressed well in a business suit that leaned more toward casual than stiff. His hair, trimmed close to his scalp, was the same shade of dark brown as Dude's own hair-- where it wasn't dyed forest green, of course-- and only had a few scattered threads of grey. A gold wristwatch peeked out from under the cuff of his shirt sleeve, and a slight morning stubble had grown out along his chiseled jawline. He certainly looked the part of an imposing and stern man, to say the least. 

A cold anger had taken up residence in Ricardo's eyes, but it melted away as soon as he set eyes on his son walking toward him ever so hesitantly. "Hijito," he murmured, turning away from the fridge and opening his arms as if to welcome Dude into them. Dude made absolutely no indication of moving forward any further and planted his feet firmly against the spot where carpet dropped off into scuffed linoleum. "Joaquín, you don't know how happy I am to finally meet you." 

Now it was Dude's turn to cross his arms, and he did so very carefully, as if measuring every strain of his muscles. "Uh-huh," was all he said in a tone that was somewhere between furious and disinterested. 

The blunt vocable was like a slap to the face for Ricardo, who shifted his pale gaze to the exhausted woman standing next to their son. "What did you tell him, Marina? How many lies are filling his head right now?" 

"I told him exactly what happened," she shot back with a surprising amount of spark in her words. "How you manipulated me and countless other women behind our backs. Nothing you say will make me forgive you for that." 

'Marina?' Dude wondered, raising his pierced eyebrow ever so slightly. The piercing itself was long gone, lost among the cardboard boxes of their hoarded belongings, so the hole itself was also difficult to see. 

"As I tried to tell you before, Marina, that was never my intention," Ricardo said, gesturing slowly in an effort to placate her. "If I had had a say in the matter, or if I had managed to discuss things with you sooner, then we would not be having this conversation." 

" _You_ had no say in the matter?" she laughed, incredulous, and stabbed an index finger toward the man's chest. Though Maria-- Marina?-- was only five-foot-five in comparison to Ricardo's four-inch height advantage, she still managed to look menacing. "I'm pretty sure you were the only one with any say in the matter! How much magic did you use on me, Ricardo? How is it that I have such a difficult time remembering our time together when I try to think back on it?"

"Please, I can explain all of that," he began. His irises, Dude noticed, were faceted like dragon scales, mostly reflecting warm colors but occasionally flashing green and light blue as he looked around what he could see of the small apartment. "Where is our other child? I know you had twins." 

The words came tumbling out of Dude's mouth before he could possibly think them through. "She's dead." 

A choked gasp left Ricardo then, and Marina stared over at her son with an almost equal amount of shock. Dude tightened his arms around his chest and looked away, keeping his gaze trained low to the ground to keep up appearances. This had to be one of the most bold-faced lies he had ever told, and the repercussions of its likely failure scared him more than anything, but it was too late to back down now. 

"A couple of months ago," he ground out after a few seconds of stunned silence in the kitchen. "We were out walking, and-- she was hit by a car, and we couldn't afford the surgeries she needed to survive." 

He felt his mother's hand fall on his shoulder. Good, she was playing along with the story. Dread at the idea that Ricardo could enter his mind and see through the lie pierced his heart with an icy spear, but a rational part of him remembered how Kordelle had always boasted about having as rare and unique a specialization as mental interference. Maybe this lie would be passable, if just for a little while. They were only buying time, but it was all he could do to hope. 

"You..." Ricardo whispered. Something in his tone had changed, and it struck a nervous chord with Dude. He looked up then and saw that same anger return, flanked by brimming tears. "You took her from me... and let her  _die_." 

"No," Dude said suddenly as he edged forward and over in a subtle suggestion that he would stand between his mother and his father without hesitation. "It's nobody's fault."

'Ari, please hurry and get to Camry. Please be safe.' 

Fists at his sides, Ricardo sucked in a deep breath and shut his eyes for a moment to focus on just breathing and processing this new information. Then, when the silence was just creeping into the territory of awkward, he spoke. "Then I suppose I have no choice but to bring you both home for your own safety and wellbeing. I will be discussing this at greater length with you, Marina, but for now, we are leaving." 

"We don't want to go anywhere with you," Dude shot back, clenching his teeth until his jaw ached. "We already have lives here. You can't just take us away from that." 

"Listen, mijo," Ricardo said, stepping toward his son and folding his arms again. "I am your father, and I have an obligation to do what's best for you. You and your mother will be coming down to Mexico with me, where I can protect you both. Do not argue with me on this. Understood?"

As he spoke, a dark purple aura flashed across his eyes, and something strange tugged at the organs inside Joaquín's rib cage. 'What the fuck?' he wondered as the idea of traveling down to Mexico suddenly shifted into the best thought he had ever had. 'You've  _gotta_ be kidding me.' 

'C'mon, Camry, show up already and kick this guy's ass!' 

~

Try as he did to fight the shift in his volition, something foreign had taken control of his motor functions, and Dude found himself sitting in the back seat of a nondescript rental car in a shockingly small amount of time. They left the apartment complex behind and started toward the airport, where Ricardo assured them amicably that they would be taking off as soon as they arrived. Early morning traffic was just picking up around them, but Ricardo easily maneuvered through the streets as if he had been living in Bailey Lake all of his natural life. 

Marina hugged her son in the back seat firmly, grounding herself in the nightmare that had become their reality. There really was no escaping this, was there? She had wanted to keep her children away from whatever life Ricardo had meant for them, and she had failed despite her insurmountable efforts. 

Dude hugged back and talked in a low voice to her, telling her things that he expected she would tell him if their roles had been switched. Looking over her shoulder, he caught a glimpse of a small person-sized crater in the sidewalk beside a mostly glass building. White caution tape had been strung on short poles around the site to keep unwitting pedestrians from walking into the hazard. 'I remember that fight. Kairomir was such a pain to deal with...' 

'Wait.' 

"Hey, listen!" he gasped, letting go of his mother to lurch forward between the two front seats. "You  _can't_ take us from this city, alright? There are way too many ghosts here, and if we leave, then they might overwhelm the other coven nearby!"

Ricardo shook his head at that. "Mijo, I have seen the news that comes out of this city-- I did plenty of research after that other witch told me where you both were. What's that ghost's name, again? The one that fights her own kind." 

"... Relle," he muttered, sitting back in his seat and slouching childishly low with his arms crossed. Marina ran a hand through his hair a couple of times in a silent "You gave it a good try, son" sort of gesture. 

"If you're that worried, though, I can arrange for a few changes to be made around this city before we leave." 

~

They were on a private jet in almost no time, stowing their sparse luggage in overhead compartments and settling into plush leather seats. Ricardo's plane had been granted access to a small airstrip where the attending staff had refueled it. After they exited from the rental car, Marina saw how Dude had tensed so tightly, and she quickly placed a hand on his shoulder while shaking her head as if to say, "I know what you're thinking. Don't make a break for it." 

He wouldn't have, anyway, but he tried to relax a bit for her sake. After all, he wasn't about to leave her to the mercy of Ricardo's anger. Dude had no idea what his father was truly like. If that barely contained rage he had seen earlier was any indication toward what to expect, then Dude wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of being in close proximity with the near-stranger. 

There were clusters of four seats facing small tables around the perimeter of the cabin, and a stewardess drifted by to check in during the few minutes between boarding and take-off. Though the jet looked pristine, tailored to the nines for a rich entrepreneur or someone to that same effect, there were also little indications that it was often occupied by a lot of much smaller passengers. From where Dude leaned against a window and glowered, he could see traces of crayon on his armrests and what might have been a juice stain around the leg of the table in front of him. 

'Right, he has a lot of kids. How many, exactly?' he thought, briefly sparing a glance at the man seated across the table. 'And what are they like...?' 

No one spoke for at least ten minutes after the jet took off, which would have completely escaped Dude in the perfectly-calibrated cabin if not for the fact that he watched the ground fall away and shrink in the distance. The tension 'round the table was palpable, easily cut with a knife that Dude vaguely wished he could hold in his hands, and only grew stronger when Ricardo cleared his throat to speak. 

"Well, now that we can have a proper conversation... there are a number of things I need to talk to you both about before we arrive." 

~~~

Camry's reentry to the Dowell residence was marked by a stern look from her mother and very confused glances from her father. Ariadna, her feet adequately bandaged for the time being, sat on the living room couch and stared into empty space. She didn't look up when the front door opened, but she did when it closed with a little more force than what was necessary. 

Her white opal eyes, tinted red with bloodshot veins of worry and fear, bore into Camry's iolite irises from over the back of the couch. "Please," she silently mouthed, but she already knew the answer to the question her eyes asked. 

"I'm sorry," Camry croaked, her voice cracking under the weight of unshed tears. "I was too late." 

" _What_ is going on?" Sadie demanded, looking between the two teens rapidly. "Ari won't say, and then you start cursing like a sailor and go running off in your pjs-- Camry?" 

She stopped her brewing tirade the second Camry shuffled over and hugged her mother around her middle. The tears were coming hot and fast now, splashing onto her mother's robe's lapel and soaking in immediately. Sadie sighed and cupped the back of her daughter's head, letting her remain silent for a moment before asking again, "What's going on, Cammie?" 

"They're gone," Camry whispered. "Dude, Maria-- they're just  _gone_."

"Gone?" Sadie gasped, yanking back to stare. She searched for a lie she couldn't find in Camry's face.  

"What do you mean, 'gone?'" Mason asked. "As in, they disappeared? Did they leave?"

"His father came and took them." Camry was about to say more, but she decided to pull herself free of her mother's loose embrace and sit beside Ari on the couch. She looked cold in her short shorts and thin shirt, though the baggy jacket helped offset that a little bit; Camry's close proximity had to have helped with that even more, especially after she had let her core's temperature amp itself up so high out of desperation. Ari didn't look up when the cushion beside her dipped down, but she did lean over until her head numbly fell on Camry's shoulder. 

"I was too late," Ariadna murmured, closing her eyes just as twin tears zipped down her cheeks and landed on Camry's bare arm. They were joined by a third one immediately after, which bridged the space between them and coalesced into a single, large bead that started to evaporate from Camry's higher body temperature. 

"I was, too," she answered, though she knew Ari couldn't hear it anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, kid, you wanna buy some angst?


	4. Let's Talk

Saoirse didn't bother with knocking when she arrived in a flurry of wind on the Dowells' front step. After all, the door was unlocked, and she had long since been accepted as another part of the family. "I'm here! I'm here," she proclaimed, panting hard and trying to keep her hijab in place with one hand. Her cell phone was clutched in her other hand and lighting up with confused text messages coming in rapid succession-- had she left without explaining the situation, too? Judging by her rumpled clothes and mismatched socks, she really hadn't wasted a second.

"Gosh, you scared me," Sadie gasped, her left hand clapping down over her heart. She knelt in front of Ariadna and held the softly crying girl's hand, patting it and occasionally rubbing up her forearm. Camry glanced up from Ari's side and tried to smile, but it was too forced. "Saoirse, it's not even seven o' clock in the morning."

"I know, and I'm sorry, but we've got to do something  _fast_ ," Saoirse answered. "Maybe they haven't left the city yet, or we can still catch up to them!" 

"I already tried to check," Camry said after clearing her throat. Her voice still came out weathered and tired. "I can usually sense witches in the area, but there was nothing as I left the apartment building. Nothing as I ran back here. God, I even ran into Izora on the way and asked her if she could sense anything anywhere." 

"They... They were really taken so quickly?" Saoirse, wooden and shocked to her core, made her way to the second couch and sank into the cushions where she could face Ariadna and Camry to talk. "And... how did Ari manage to get away?" 

"I don't know," Camry said. She looked back at Ari, who was slowly drying her eyes with the sleeves of her jacket. Wait-- that faded shade of navy blue was familiar. 'Isn't this Dude's jacket?' she wondered absentmindedly. "We didn't really get a chance to talk before I panicked and ran off at top speed." 

Mason appeared in the doorway between the kitchen and living room then, bearing a glass of milk in one hand and a plate of buttered toast with jam in the other. His gaze landed on Saoirse and he closed his eyes, breathing out firmly through his nose. "Is there going to be another child in this house after I open my eyes?"

"No, Dad," Camry muttered, clearly not in the mood to humor any light jokes. 

"Sorry, Mr. Dowell," Saoirse apologized again, fiddling with a loose end of her hijab. "Cam called me, so I hurried over." 

After getting up so that Ari could eat the food placed in front of her, Sadie gave her daughter and figurative daughter her trademark " _No_ nonsense" stare. "I don't want to hear any excuses, young ladies. You had both better start talking." When they each started to say something in unison, Sadie put a hand up and cut them off. "One at a time, please. It's too early, and I haven't had my coffee yet."

Saoirse and Camry exchanged a meaningful look, and the younger of the two gestured for the other to go first. "Well," Saoirse began a bit hesitantly, "ghosts aren't  _actually_ the only supernatural things in this world. There are also witches, and they hate ghosts. Mortal enemies, or whatever. Immortal enemies? Ghosts are already dead, I mean. That's not the point. Um." 

"The point is that Dude and Ariadna's dad is a witch, and a coven leader," Camry jumped in to back up her floundering girlfriend. "And Maria ran away to America to try and get away from him and keep the two of them out of danger, but they were ratted out last night." 

Saoirse managed to finish the explanation from that moment on and gratefully acknowledged the nods and other motions that Camry used to help punctuate the story. When it was over, both Sadie and Mason were silent, staring at a number of things around the room: the floor, the three girls, each other. No one spoke for a long while, and only Ariadna's rhythmic chewing broke the silence that had descended upon the living room. Saoirse took the time to text her mother back, being as brief as she could be with explaining the crisis at hand. 

"So... We need to call the police first," Mason presumed, rising from his chair as if to go retrieve his phone. 

"No, we can't do that!" Camry yelped, jerking upright in her seat and startling Ari beside her. "We don't know what kind of power this guy has, and if he's anything like Kordelle, then calling the police will only make things harder." 

"Who the hell is Kordelle?" Sadie asked. 

"What if calling the police alerts their father to where Ariadna is?" Saoirse pointed out quickly, motioning with her free hand to the aforementioned girl. "And there's a really good chance that he can buy off the police, or control their minds so they work for him instead of the law. We would just be dropping her right into his hands." 

"Okay, okay, I see your point," Mason said, running a hand through his untamed brown hair. "No police. You girls really are embedded in this 'vigilante justice' code, aren't you..." 

"If we can't get the police involved, then what  _can_ we do?" Sadie asked. "And, again, who is Kordelle?" 

Camry clenched her hand into a fist against her thigh before pointing at her open mouth. "He's the one who tried to kill me a couple'a months ago, Mom. He's bad news. That's not important, though." 

" _He_ \--?" 

"That's in the past, Mom!" 

"... Watch your tone, young lady." 

~~~

"Well, now that we can have a proper conversation... there are a number of things I need to talk to you both about before we arrive."   

The perfect image of a petulant teenager, Dude immediately chose to stare pointedly out the window and watch the clouds streak past far below. His lips pressed into a thin line, and he propped up his chin on the heel of his palm. In the seat beside him, Marina sat back and settled her hands in her lap. She seemed ready to listen, or maybe to wait for her chance to voice her own opinions. 

'Here it comes' she thought with an internal sigh. 'More excuses.'

"First... there is a logical reason for why you have difficulty remembering things from our past," Ricardo began, his eyes surprisingly warm as he let them linger on Marina's still face. "Sometimes, a witch uses magic without consciously thinking about it, and I'm afraid that I might have done so while we were together. When we return to the coven, there may be a few things we can try to return any lost memories to you.

"Then, well..." Ricardo hummed a single, low note for a second, gathering his thoughts and glancing at his cross son. "It's not something I'm proud of, but I need you both to understand why I was seeing so many people. Faith-- or a lack of it-- had nothing to do with it."

He shifted in his seat, straightening his back before slumping forward a little. "It was almost twenty years ago exactly... I only have one brother, and his wife died in childbirth, along with their premature daughter. He was so distraught that he could barely go on himself, and our mother, the previous leader of the coven, panicked. She told me that I had to have as many children as I possibly could, and not to worry about staying attached to any one woman.

"I tried to be thorough, to explain what circumstances I could to everyone, and I offered every possible compensation," Ricardo said with a small wave of his hand, the palm facing up. "Money, security and safety, always having open access to the kids-- and I always offered to let everyone stay within the complex so they wouldn't have to live apart. It... what I had to do... was never something I could be proud of, and I wish I could have seen any other way to ensure that our coven didn't die out, but I never tried to trap anyone into anything."

"That... You never offered anything like that to me," Marina said slowly, her lips forming the words carefully. Even as she sat in the present, her mind was far away in the past, struggling in its search for something unseen. 

Ricardo offered her a sad look. "I did, though. That's why I think something must have happened to your memory, Marina. You definitely agreed to the terms I laid out." 

"Did you get it in writing or something?" Dude piped up suddenly, drawing both of his parents' eyes to him. Still standoffish in posture and expression, he slouched against the window but had turned to address the small gathering. 

"... No, I did not," Ricardo admitted. "And I should have, of course. I have many regrets from everything I have neglected to do." 

Dude furrowed his brow and stared back out at the dawning world. "Hmph. Pretty convenient. Sounds like something someone I thought was my friend once would've cooked up to trick me." 

"This isn't a trick, Joaquín!" Ricardo snapped. His voice was powerful, carrying effortlessly to all corners of the cabin. "I'll repeat it all under a truth spell if that's what it takes to convince you."

Marina settled her hand on Dude's arm and said nothing, only breaking her staring contest with the table top when she had finally found the words to say. Her son didn't respond to the contact save for placing his hand over hers and letting it rest there for a while. "All I can remember is feeling terrified, Ricardo. You were gone so often, and I was being ostracized by my family for becoming pregnant outside of marriage. Then you showed me magic, and I felt even more terrified because I didn't understand any of what was going on around me. Nothing made sense anymore. I was  _nineteen_. It felt like my only option where I had any control over myself was to run." 

There were tears in her voice, making her words wobble and shake as she forced them out. Ricardo leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table, looking the pinnacle of attentiveness. It was obvious he wanted to reach for Marina and take her hand, but he refrained though an intuitive sense of her emotional state. "Marina... I... There are so many things I would have done differently. If only I had known..." 

He sighed, looking between the two before him. "If my fears are correct, and it really was my fault that you lost some of your memories, then I won't be mad that you ran. I understand why it felt like your only option. I just ask that you accept that my intentions are good, and that I want to protect you both to the best of my abilities."

"If what you're telling me is true, and I really did agree to everything that happened, then I have to know what it is you're planning from now on," Marina stated firmly. As shiny as her amethyst eyes were, her resolve was steadfast. "What future do you have in mind for our son? And for me?"

That brought Dude's eyes back to the conversation at hand. Of course, he had been quietly absorbing every word exchanged, but now he was being talked about directly. His black opal eyes flickered between his parents' faces rapidly as if he was trying to predict the next words out of each of their mouths. As expected, Ricardo spoke first, and he looked right at his son to address him.

"Well, Joaquín, I want to educate you on our culture, first of all. We have so much magic to teach you. With you safe at home, our coven will be... complete." He hesitated on that last word, and the muscles around his mouth twitched ever so slightly. The 'loss' of Ariadna must have crossed his mind just as he tried to think of their reunited family. Ricardo recovered from it with surprising grace and continued. "Your siblings are very excited to meet you, too." 

"How many do I have?" Curiosity yanked the question out of him before he could maintain his sullen exterior.

Ricardo smiled wide and reached into his pocket to pull out a thick wallet. Its rich brown leather was etched with remarkably detailed and tiny patterns that seemed to shift like mirages when Dude tried to get a nonchalant but closer look at them. His father flipped it open and pulled out a stack of small pictures that were almost like miniature Polaroids but with better quality. 

"These are my favorite pictures of everyone," he explained, laying them out side by side in two rows of five. "You have eleven siblings, mijo. You're the third oldest, too."

Joaquín's eyes were blown wide open as he stared at all the smiling faces and candid moments he didn't recognize. As distant as this unknown world was, there were definitely small things that stood out in familiar ways. It looked like nearly all of his siblings had the same nose as he did-- didn't that mean he had Ricardo's nose? 

And as for being the third oldest, he knew he couldn't correct his father and say that he was actually the fourth by including Ariadna, but the thought couldn't help but cross his mind. 

~~~

Conversation had broken down in the short span of fifteen minutes as their list of possible courses of actions became shorter and shorter, each option shot down by parent and teen alike for various reasons. Was there really nothing any of them could do to bring Dude and Maria home? 

Camry still clung to the idea of going down to Mexico herself and searching, but there were so many holes in that plan that, in her mind's eye, it looked more like Swiss cheese than a concrete plot. "I  _hate_ not being able to do anything..." 

Throughout everything, Ariadna had remained silent to concentrate on eating. Surrounded by people who she couldn't hear and couldn't understand her signing, she had resigned herself to being set apart from the goings-on in the room-- that is, until the television flickered to life and started a mandatory broadcast from what looked to be the mayor's office. Saoirse lunged for the remote control and turned up the volume. After a brief glance at Ariadna, she also clicked on the subtitles. 

"--have received word from the federal government that new protocols are being set in motion to help protect the safety and livelihoods of American citizens," the mayor of Bailey Lake said, his tone as serious as it always was. "The threat of ghosts is just too serious to ignore, and with new advancements in our understanding of ghosts, as well as our technology, the city of Bailey Lake is now endorsing federal intervention. Shelters are being erected in various strategic locations throughout the city in order to prevent casualties."

"That's good, actually," Camry commented to no one in particular. Her chin was in her hand, her bony elbow digging into the top of her thigh. 

"In addition to other such preventative measures, the city will be declaring all present ectoplasmic entities as illegal, highly prioritized threats to be neutralized. This mandate will be further established and clarified in subsequent hearings and congregations." 

"...  _Not good_ ," Saoirse whispered, her eyes darting to Camry's stunned face. 

"What?" Camry shrieked, shooting up and throwing her hands out in exasperation. "What about Relle Phantom? I thought the city  _appreciated_ everything I do for it!"

"Maybe they'll decide you're an exception," Mason suggested hopefully, eyeing his daughter warily. He knew better than anyone else that her temper could easily get the better of her, and since the day she had gained volcanic-based superpowers-- of all things-- her outbursts tended to have a little more heat behind them. "The laws aren't in effect yet." 

"Give it some time, sweetie," Sadie said in an attempt to be soothing.

"I don't  _have_ time," Camry growled in response, her clenched fists smoking threateningly. " _Dude's_ in trouble,  _Maria's_ in trouble-- now this? What the fu--  _hell_ do they think they're doing, making my job that much harder?" 

Saoirse pursed her lips in thought, steepling her fingers in front of her face as she leaned forward. "Well... Stronger mandates and enforcement, even for a little while, might be exactly what we need right now."

"How so?" Cam inquired, turning and visibly cooling off a little. The wisps of smoke dissipated from her hands mercifully in time to avoid setting off the smoke alarm in the ceiling. 

"Think about it," Saoirse said with a wave of her hand. "We've got more important things to worry about right now. Ghosts attacking would just get in the way and distract you-- distract  _us_. Maybe leaving these problems in the hands of the government for just a little while will give us an opportunity to actually do something about Dude and Maria."

The logic was sound, and its rationality brought a small, half-hearted smile to the half-ghost's lips. "Okay, that... that makes sense. I don't like the idea of the government doing my job, but you're right. We've got bigger problems to worry about."

Empty coffee mug in hand, Sadie rose to her feet and kept both hands pressed to the porcelain sides, as if gleaning what little residual warmth they still contained. "Hon, go get dressed. We should take Ariadna to a clinic to have her feet checked for infection before any other plans are made."

~~

The trip to the walk-in clinic was uneventful as Sadie did everything she could to make sure that Ariadna's visit stayed under the radar. The doctor on hand prescribed a topical ointment to prevent bacteria infecting the cuts, and after gently probing for any more debris lodged under the skin of her feet, he concluded that she was going to be just fine. It looked as though Sadie's amateur first-aid had done most of the doctor's job for him. "Stay off your feet as much as possible, young lady," he said pleasantly to Ari, and she nodded in a small, almost indiscernible motion after a moment. 

Camry and Saoirse accompanied them to the clinic and back, though they were made to wait in a side room while the examination took place. Twice as anxious as usual, Cam fidgeted with anything and everything she could get her hands on: her ring, her hair, the end of Saoirse's hijab, the hem of her shirt, pamphlets on the side table, and pens were just a few of her victims. Saoirse knew it helped her think and, in some cases, calm down a little bit, so she refrained from stopping her girlfriend's anxious stimming and just shot looks at anyone who gave them disapproving glances from across the waiting room. 

Even so, this nervous squirming quickly reached a rare level of intensity, and it only began to lessen when her mother led Ariadna out of the back area and into the waiting room. Ari had her shoes back on, and sturdy white bandages peeked out no higher than the tops of her ankles. She leaned on Sadie's arm heavily to walk, taking only the lightest of steps in order to avoid exacerbating her minor injuries. Cam took her other arm as a second crutch, and the group left without another word to anyone. 

As preoccupied as her girlfriend was with helping, Saoirse seldom broke casual contact with Camry by resting her hand on her lower back or shoulder, reminding her of their comforting proximity. Saoirse could only imagine what was going through Camry's head at that moment. So much had happened in such a short span of time. She couldn't help but think of the bout of unbridled panic that Dude's first disappearance had caused them both those distant two months ago. Back when Kordelle's involvement had been completely unknown and they both feared that he had been kidnapped by elusive witches, their hearts had beaten at top speeds in unison, as if racing one another like horses for an imaginary finish line. 

When they were back in the car and heading home, Ariadna got Camry's attention and signed something slowly to her, as if she was trying to enunciate "syllables" for her sake. She had only been taught a choice few words and phrases, though, and the meaning was lost on the blonde girl. She shook her head and signed "Sorry, don't understand," earning her an exasperated huff in answer. 

"Can you just say what you want to say?" Camry asked, though the way she stretched her mouth to pronounce everything as if in slow motion made Ariadna frown and put a finger against the other girl's mouth before she could finish. 

"Just talk normally," she said out loud, giving her a look that made it clear she wanted to roll her eyes but was restraining herself. 

"Oh, sorry," Cam said a bit sheepishly. With an added tint of embarrassed color in her cheeks, she repeated herself a bit more naturally, and Ariadna nodded in understanding. 

"I signed, 'Who told our father where to find us?'" she explained, and Camry's lips formed a small "O."

"Kordelle," she responded, spelling out his name in sign language for her added benefit. At the very least, she had the alphabet down. Maybe it would be enough for successful communication. 

As remarkably natural as her voice sounded to everyone's ears, Ariadna seemed uncomfortable with talking aloud. She had always signed things to her brother and mother, and while they spoke out loud to help her learn how to read lips in unison with their signing, she never really reciprocated it vocally in their household. There just had never been any need to, and she couldn't help feeling self-conscious about her volume when she couldn't really gauge it effectively. She had been almost entirely deaf throughout all of her life, so the only way she knew how to make herself sound like someone who could hear was through her brief mental jaunts into the past.

"So, do we start there? With him?" Ariadna asked, looking briefly at Saoirse and Sadie in the front seat in case they were about to join the conversation. 

"No," Saoirse immediately spoke up, and Camry signed the same word. She spelled "dangerous" as well, and Ariadna nodded. 

"Okay. Where do we start?" 

"We don't really know," Camry said. "Do you know anything about your dad or his coven?" Ariadna said that she didn't, which led them back to exactly where they had started: two steps behind and without an option for taking even a single step forward. 

The summer day passed by with little to be happy about as a gloom settled over the Dowell household. Saoirse eventually went home, presumably slated for a stern scolding for running out so early in the morning, and Ariadna was set up in the spare upstairs bedroom closest to Camry's. Sadie went out and bought a few extra things for their new house guest, including toiletries and some new clothes so she wouldn't be stuck in old pajamas. When Ari took a look around the room, impersonal and solitary, a swell of grief bubbled up in her heart and spilled over in the form of silent tears. Try as she did to quell the waterworks, she sank into the plush bedspread and despair for her lost family. 

Sometime after a rather hushed dinner of Sadie's homemade enchiladas and rice-- a well-meaning gesture to try and comfort Ari in her listless despondency-- Camry hiccuped a wisp of smoke and groaned, rising from a living room couch to change into Relle Phantom. She rushed out of the house and took to the skies without a word to anyone, bridging the gap between the suburbs and the metropolitan area in seconds as she ran. 

'Perfect' she thought sarcastically. 'Just what I need to end a stupid, stupid day like this one.'

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the ball is rolling. Please leave a comment down below, and kudos are always appreciated! What do you think is going to happen next? I'm curious to know your thoughts so far.


	5. Networking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RECAP: 
> 
> Ariadna is depressed and Camry gets called into a fight when she would rather be doing literally anything else.

There's something about fighting that really, well, clears my head. Sure, sometimes fighting does the literal opposite of that, especially if I get smacked on the head by a wall or a ball of energy, but taking my frustration out on a malevolent ghost does wonders for sweeping aside the constant fog of anxiety and fear in my brain. As much as I didn't want to get drawn into a brawl, there was no avoiding it when the public depended on me.

In retrospect, I should have remembered the broadcast from earlier that same day-- otherwise, I might not have rushed into the fray so blindly.

As I ran, leaping from tile to tile with grace that only came from years of dance training under my belt, I scanned what I could see of the city in all directions. Thick smoke billowed from a park situated within the confines of a business sector, and as I raced closer I could see and hear crowds of people running away in fear. It was summertime, so the drier weather and elevated temperatures made it much harder to fight with fire as it spread more easily and often uncontrollably. That's why I summoned green ectoplasmic fire instead; something about its unnatural properties kept it from acting like real fire, so it was safer to use and left behind less damage to the living world. 

"Let's see what I'm up against," I mumbled, frowning as I passed over the heads of scared citizens rushing down the streets with reckless abandon. I rounded a corner and came into full view of the burning park.

Half of a dozen dry, leafy trees were blazing with pink and purple fire, and dozens more were starting to catch on as the wind blowing between the surrounding buildings fanned the flames higher. In the middle of it all, giggling to herself and sitting at a floating garden table with a cup of tea in hand, was Izora, looking her usual pompous and overdramatic self. The portly ghost had a very Victorian aesthetic, particularly in her dress made of countless ruffles and fine silks. A fascinator sat at a rakish angle atop her head, its plume of feathers ribbed by lifelike flowers and lace. 

"What is it that you say nowadays? 'Long time, no see?'" Izora asked, glancing at me over the gold rim of her tea cup. I stood with my arms folded over my chest and an unamused scowl on my face. 

"Just 'cause I didn't take you down earlier today doesn't mean I was giving you permission to wreck everyone's day," I shot back. "And the park? Really? These trees are gonna take years to grow after they're replanted."

"I found them unsightly," Izora stated simply, though she did take a gander at her handiwork. "There is something so much more elegant about twirling flames in the summer breeze. Don't you agree, dear?" 

"Doesn't matter what I think about them," I answered, and with a wave of my hand I extinguished the fires. Their heat slammed back into me through an invisible line connecting to my hand, but I locked my jaw and absorbed it with barely a groan of annoyance. "I just know they need to go. And so do you, Izora." 

Izora gasped, an affronted hand clapping down on her chest. "You would do a noble lady such injustice? The indecency! I thought you had learned better manners than that, Relle."

"Screw! Manners!" I yelled suddenly, and with enraged stomping I marched right up to her table and slammed my hands down around an empty place setting. The cups and saucers rattled with the force, briefly filling the air with the sound of clattering china. "I am in the middle of a  _crisis_ , Izora! I do not have the time for your bullshit antics! Get out of this world, go back to the Zone, and leave these people alone!"

In answer, Izora looked down into the delicate cup she cradled between both gloved hands. Her index finger traced along the gilded rim, running back and forth idly, and the brim of her fascinator tilted to cover her face. "Relle, dear, your words wound me," she said, her voice as calm as ever, but they carried a dangerous edge that Relle was all too familiar with. 

She rose slowly, the hem of her dress falling past her feet that she never bothered to manifest. "Do you think you could ever  _fathom_ what I do to anyone who speaks to me with such disrespect?" As she spoke, Izora angled her head back up enough to make the barest of eye contact with Relle. Her normally red irises flashed a neon pink, and her lips pulled back in a fierce snarl. 

"I suppose I will have to teach you the manners befitting of a young lady myself," she said, and a closed parasol appeared in her clenched hand. She lifted it back above her head and brought it down with a shocking speed, obliterating the tableware in a shower of china daggers. Relle leaped back at the last second to avoid the barrage of shards and took up a fighting stance, both fists at the ready and charged with green energy. 

She didn't have time for this! "Listen, Izora, just leave and call it a day!" Relle barked back at her. "I have more important things to worry about!"

Oops. "I beg to differ," Izora said, punctuating her sentence with a haughty laugh. The elegant table, split down the middle, vanished, leaving behind a miniature army of tableware that floated up to take positions around Izora's shoulders. The business ends of all the forks, knives, and spoons rotated to face Relle, who stared, incredulous, at the display. "There is  _always_ time for a lesson in table manners.

"How much sugar in your tea, dear?" Izora asked cordially, and with a dainty flick of her wrist a tiny spoon zipped forward as if shot from a cannon. Relle had no time to move out of the way before it grazed her forearm and upper arm in rapid succession, and to her shock a dribble of green blood oozed out of the identical cuts. 

"Did you just cut me with a  _spoon?_ " the teen shrieked, clapping a hand over the slash on her upper arm. She clenched the other into a fist and lobbed a ball of undead energy at her opponent, but her parasol snapped open to deflect it. 

"It's time for cake," Izora continued, and another utensil-- this time, it was a small fork-- zoomed toward the half-ghost. Relle was ready for it this time and bounced back on the balls of her feet, narrowly avoiding the sharpened tines. The fork embedded itself into the surface of her white tile, however, which shattered into formless light and left her with nothing to stand on. Relle dropped a few feet before a new one appeared underfoot, and she glared with twice as much heat as before.

"That's it!" she yelled before rushing forward, zipping from side to side erratically as she approached to try and throw off Izora's aim. The classy ghost muttered something notably unladylike under her breath and launched all of the remaining utensils in unison, which at the very least resulted in a dinner fork lodging into the meat of Relle's left thigh. She yelped but didn't slow, landing a solid blow on Izora's jaw. She was sent flying back and into the fourth-floor window of an office building, which splintered under the impact and rained plexiglass onto the empty sidewalk below. 

" _Rrrgh_...!" Relle growled, and with a choked gasp she tugged the fork free from her leg. As if the cutlery was a mic, she held her hand straight out and let the bloody utensil tumble to the grass far below. "Keep this up, Izora, and see what happens!" 

The enraged ghost was about to retort as she regained her bearings, but a shrill squeal echoed around them and brought their eyes back to the ground, where a veritable platoon of uniformed people were lined up in rows. They were brandishing weapons and shields in various shades of black and green. Behind them, a man that Camry recognized as the chief of police stood in front of a squad car; he had a megaphone in his hand, which had been what made the shrill feedback sound.

"You are in violation of anti-ghost mandates numbers one through fourteen!" he stated, puffing his chest out and forcing his voice to carry as much authority as possible. "We order you to cease and desist immediately, or we will use force to remove you." 

Relle Phantom stiffened, her hands unfurling and moving up in front of her chest, palms facing out. "Guys, I appreciate the help, but I got this," she assured them only to be cut off by the chief.

"That includes you, Relle Phantom," he added. If he wasn't positioned so far away, she might have seen the way his eyebrows drew closer together out of regret. "You have five seconds to comply. Five! Four!" The platoon's guns lifted higher, taking aim at both Izora and Relle. 

"What?" she shrieked, throwing her arms out to her sides. "We're on the same side!"

"Three!" the chief of police insisted. "Two!"

"You positive wretches," Izora grumbled, her red eyes scanning the area for an exit route. She launched off of the window, cracking it further with the force, and reared her parasol back to make an attempt at one last blow before fleeing. Relle, who had been preparing to leave rather than fight the people she was trying to protect, only saw Izora's approach out of the corner of her eye and didn't have enough time to react. The closed parasol struck her across the back of her shoulders and sent her reeling forward, throwing off her own escape. 

Relle's automatic yelp drowned out the chief's staccato bark of "One!" Before she could even recover, much less flee the scene, shots rang out in rapid succession.

~

It was lucky that Saoirse was subscribed to the city's ghost alert app, which put out warnings for ghost sightings and predicted likely dangerous zones to avoid. By the time Izora had thrown her first fireball at the park's foliage, Saoirse's phone lit up with the alert and all but yanked her out of her desk seat. She stumbled over piles of dirty laundry on her way to the bedroom door and quickly threw on some shoes, knowing full well that it was probably best for her to stay home and remain safe. 

Now, with Dude kidnapped and the sudden anti-ghost ordinances being put into place, Camry was going to need all the back-up she could get. 

In the looming summer evening, the sun was just starting to set, tinting the sky with new, darker colors that stained the clouds. Saoirse managed to catch one of the departing L-Trams as it headed downtown, where she jumped off to hurry the rest of the way to the park. Her phone's GPS started to beep angrily as she drew nearer; she was entering a red zone, where the alert app predicted destruction and danger. She didn't bother herself with it, though, and followed the sounds of megaphones and angry shouting. 

Rounding a corner, Saoirse came face to face with a sea of black and green. A thrum of fear, deep-rooted in a life experience she would have difficulty putting into words, pulsed through her veins and lit up the tips of her fingers with electricity. Who were all of these policemen-- were they actually policemen, or did they belong to a different sort of safety department altogether? Her phone shook in her hands, but she held it down low and started to record everywhere her eyes looked.

The park was swathed in fields of smoke, and most of the trees were still smoldering. Saoirse took note of a cracked window, but little else that she could see was damaged. 'Pretty tame battle, compared to most' she thought, her lips pursing ever so slightly in a frown. 

'But where's Relle?'

"Hey, you shouldn't be here!" someone shouted suddenly, causing her to start and spin towards the speaker. One of the officers of the city-- she could tell because he wore navy blue, not the black-and-green riot suits of the others in the crowd-- was hurrying over and sporting a stern look on his tired face. "It's too dangerous. Go home."

"But what about Relle?" she asked quickly while shifting her phone lower and back so it could still record without being conspicuous. "What happened?"

"That, uh--" he started to awkwardly say, but he shook his head suddenly and doubled down on his efforts to clear the area of civilians. "Just go home, kid. Don't make our jobs any harder, yeah?"

Saoirse was about to insist on getting at least a little more information than that, but her better judgment warned her to let it go and comply. She nodded slowly, maintaining eye contact with the officer, and started back down the street in the direction she had come from. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something bright green in the park and paused to focus on it. Three armored men were struggling to wrangle a glowing green net out of the branches of a charred tree. They cursed, but when Saoirse saw one of them pull a large knife out of his boot and pantomime cutting it free, the other two immediately jumped to shoot down the idea. Unfortunately, she was too far away to hear what they were saying. 

Then, before she could start walking again, nearly half of a dozen news vans came screeching down the street and halted as close to the park as they could. Camera people jumped out, followed quickly by their partnered, smartly-dressed newscasters, and Saoirse got an idea. Phone up and still recording, she crept over to a van and hid behind it, using the windowless vehicles as cover. She darted from one to the next, peeking out in all directions often, until she found herself at a much better vantage point. 

More of the park was in view, and she could see half a dozen uniformed people scrambling around on their hands and knees, picking up random objects to seal inside metallic canisters. There were more of those nets lying on the ground as well, though they were being retrieved and packed away even as Saoirse watched. A few reporters were already starting their broadcasts of the latest events, gesturing to the officers and talking about the newest measures to protect the city's residents from ghosts. 

"Cam," Saoirse breathed, her pink tourmaline eyes scanning everywhere. 'Did she already leave? Which ghost attacked, anyway?' 

There were two clusters of soldiers in particular that got her attention then as a loud shout suddenly rose up. It was so unexpected that the reporter nearest to Saoirse immediately stopped talking and turned to look for herself. Saoirse's heart lept into her throat and beat there erratically, nearly drowning out the world around her. 

Each group seemed to be holding down one of those same green nets and trapping something humanoid underneath. From where Saoirse stood, the net closest to her lurched in a desperate bid to break free, and two officers were thrown back from the force; their shields were tossed from their hands like frisbees and fell to the scorched grass uselessly. Through the green tint of the net it was hard to distinguish specific features of the prisoner's face, but there was no mistaking the blue hair and short, stocky physique. 

"Relle!" Saoirse gasped, almost screwing up and screaming out the half-ghost's secret identity by accident instead. Her phone was still recording, and she zoomed in while stepping out into the open to start toward the struggle.

"You're making a mistake!" Relle veritably roared. She scrabbled for the edge of the net to throw it off of herself, but there were too many people around, and they quickly surrounded her. Saoirse couldn't see it for herself, but a high-pitched whine and screech of pain reached her ears and sent her stomach churning like a high-powered washing machine. 

"Stop it!" Saoirse found herself shouting, but try as she did to run forward and reach her girlfriend, more policemen were there to stop her. "That's Relle Phantom-- What are you  _doing?_ "

She could only watch helplessly as the net and all of its limp contents were bundled into the back of a Jeep and driven away. A second vehicle took away another bundle of wires, but she couldn't bring herself to pay it any attention. Saoirse was too shocked, too stunned, to even say anything as she was berated by the police and physically escorted away. 

Reporters still gave their spiels in front of the camera, though the majority of them was somber as they conclusively stated that Relle Phantom, questionable vigilante but definite hero of Bailey Lake, had just been taken into police custody. Small crowds had begun to filter back into the area, drawn in by their insatiable curiosity. Opposition rose up to meet them in the form of temporary barricades and orders barked through the chief of police's megaphone. 

"Everyone, please go back to your homes and let the task force do their jobs. Do not disrupt the investigation!"

First, Dude was taken. Now, Camry was gone as well. 

Saoirse was alone.

~~

The dust took nearly an hour to settle, so to speak, and in all of that time Saoirse merely ambled over to a cafe across the street from the park and crouched next to the building. She kept her cold eyes trained on the men and women working to collect all traces of the battle. It scalded her insides to be relegated to just sitting and watching, but there was no chance she could follow the trucks that had taken the two ghosts away-- they were likely in a secure location already, being subjected to who knew what. 

This was too much like the night that Kordelle had nearly succeeded in killing Camry. Just the thought of-- of what? Of torture? Of experimentation? Of never seeing her girlfriend again? 

Oh, no, she was going to throw up if she kept on that train of thought for even a second longer.

Saoirse clapped a hand to her stomach and focused on taking deep, calming breaths. Her heart was racing, and her fingertips tingled with fear. Everything was going so terribly all of a sudden! If only those stupid laws hadn't been put into motion out of the blue. 

The police had left the caution tape strung up on barriers around the park, most likely to protect hapless citizens from the charred environment. As people began to leave, driving away in trucks emblazoned with brand new logos for the task force, Saoirse started to wonder if she ought to ignore the caution tape and just go look at the site herself. 'It's probably pointless...' she thought, her heart sinking to the darkest pit of her stomach. 'They're all already gone. What good is it gonna do me anyway?'  

Just as she finished that particular train of thought and stood up to go, her mind reeling with what she was going to have to tell Camry's parents if they didn't already know, she saw someone fairly tall and willowy approach the caution tape hesitantly. Her back was to Saoirse, but she could see that this newcomer had very curly dark brown hair; under the fading evening, the golden hour sunlight lit up the dark color with a hint of red. It reminded Saoirse of her own hair wrapped up inside of her hijab.

Normally, she wouldn't have bothered to show any interest in a total stranger, but something was familiar about this young woman. The way she looked in all directions like a calculating prey animal was... unusual. She darted under the tape and ran to the epicenter of the scorched grass, picking up small items and bagging them as she went along. With a start, Saoirse remembered why this person had caught her attention-- this was the lady that she and Camry had seen on the lakefront last night!

"Hey... Hey!" Saoirse gasped before bursting into a run. She slipped under the tape and dashed over the grass, paying no mind to avoiding the burnt areas. The scientist lady-- what had she said her name was? 'Allison?'-- popped up from where she knelt on the ground. By the way her muscles tensed, she looked ready to bolt at the drop of a hat. 

Panting slightly, Saoirse drew closer and held her hands up loosely, facing her palms toward the sky. "You're-- You're the lady at the beach last night, right? I've seen you around a lot after ghost fights."

The scientist whipped her head from side to side, making her curly ponytail swish back and forth as she scanned the area. "U-Um, yes? Can I help y--? Wait, how did you know I was at the beach last night?" she demanded to know suddenly. 

"Look, do you know much about ghosts?" Saoirse powered on, her resolve bolstered by an unfounded faith that maybe she wasn't making a mistake in talking to this lady. "Like, how to protect ourselves and stuff?" 

She took a wary step back, clutching the half dozen plastic bags tightly in her hand. "My research is private. You shouldn't know about anything like that." 

"No, no, please," Saoirse said quickly. She gesticulated carefully, motioning to the ground and the sky as she talked. "Look, the government just arrested Relle, but-- but the city needs her, and she needs to protect the city. I was hoping that-- maybe, I dunno-- you would be able to help me do something about this?"

"... Wait, you're that girl with the WeTube channel," the scientist realized, and with that newfound knowledge she felt compelled to draw a little closer instead of away. "The one with Relle in it. I watched it so many times to look for any clues. You know Relle  _personally_ , don't you." 

Her thick-lashed eyes-- chrysocolla, if Saoirse wasn't mistaken-- flicked rapidly to all different spots on Saoirse's face, taking in small details that Saoirse could only guess at. She could practically see the gears turning in the other lady's brain. "Yeah, that's me. My name is Saoirse. Uh... I think your started with... an A?"

"Avery," she immediately replied. "Avery Rheasson, as a matter of fact. Nice to meet you, Saoirse." 

"Likewise," Saoirse stammered a little. This Avery was nicer than she had expected after seeing her blow up at the officers some hours ago. 

"Okay, so back up a little and tell me what it is you're trying to do," Avery said, and as she did so she pulled forward a satchel hanging from her shoulder and placed inside the items she had gathered so far. "Relle got arrested-- You're trying to set her free?" 

~~

Seated on the big, well-loved couch within his coven's stronghold, Endellion propped his head up on a fist and stared down at the tablet in his hand. A live news broadcast was talking about how the government's new task force had successfully taken down its first targets and subdued them with remarkably little violence. Seeing Relle's name appear in the headlines may have been what first piqued his interest, but the gravity of the situation had been what made him stay to watch the entire stream. 

'So, she's been arrested' he mused, a small smile gracing his lips. 'I guess someone had the right idea to start taking ghosts more seriously. Then again, this might make it harder for other covens if more cities follow our lead...' 

Though he wished he could take credit for getting Relle in trouble with the law, he still silently applauded whoever had managed it. Humans needed to wake up and see the threat for what it really was instead of celebrating the accomplishments of one girl trying to be a superhero. Endellion suspected that this task force's creation had been the product of a witch's involvement, but without any way to tell, it seemed like he would have to sit back and wait to see what the humans decided to do with Relle. 

It was high time that things changed for the better around Bailey Lake, and by whatever means necessary, too. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the plot charges forward. Great googly-moogly, it's all gone to shit!
> 
> Please leave a comment or two because they always make my day and tell me that this story is worth continuing! Kudos are always appreciated, too~ 
> 
> I hope you'll join me in the next chapter! Until then!


	6. Liminal Spaces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter gets... kinda dark near the end. I just wanted to give you guys a little bit of a warning. Also, if you would like me to add any trigger warnings, please let me know!
> 
> The art featured below is a sprite commission by ryko on tumblr (just in case you were forgetting what Relle Phantom looks like ;) ).

 

The plane landed a number of hours later, much to Ricardo's happiness and Marina and Dude's unease. Sure, it had certainly intrigued Joaquín to learn a little about his near-dozen other siblings, but that didn't mean he was emotionally prepared to suddenly meet all of them. Besides, the plane landing meant that their journey was over, and he was inarguably very, very far away from the people he cared for so much. 

Ricardo rose from his seat to have a word with the pilot, though not before entreating his two companions to gather their things from above and get ready to disembark. "We still have a bit of a drive ahead," he explained, "but then we will finally be home."

Dude wanted to bite back, to resist the idea that he was actually "home," but held his tongue with a surprising amount of willpower. Instead, he resigned himself to pulling down his mother's luggage, then his own, and waiting by the cabin's departure door. What else was there to do?

~~~

Saoirse's phone buzzed in her pants pocket, though she didn't answer it right away. She hurried after Avery off the L-Tram, dodging throngs of last-minute workers going home for the night and weaving through turnstiles with determined grace. The sun was setting behind them, casting the world in a strange half-light that threatened to darken if she closed her eyes for too long. She knew she would need to pray soon, but that could wait for a little while. Her current situation was a little more dire--  _Camry's_ situation was a little more dire.

Avery slowed in her jogging and turned to look back at her new acquaintance, who was struggling to match her pace. "You're not much of a runner, huh?" she assumed. Saoirse, too out of breath to retort, leveled an unamused stare at the older woman. "Hey, I'm just thinking about what's necessary when you're scavenging for resources. You've gotta be fast if you want to get the best stuff.

"Anyway, this is my apartment," she continued, waving her hand toward a tall brick building with ornate lamps in front and tons of large windows going all the way to the top. One side was all but covered in trellises and planter boxes, and with the early summer season in full swing, the plants were blooming with vigor. Avery unlocked the front door and led Saoirse through the stairwells to the second floor, where she had to shove her door open after unlocking it as well. There were a bunch of stacks of boxes and papers in the way, Saoirse noted as she went through and let Avery shut the door behind her. 

Saoirse paused for a moment to take in the sight of the unfamiliar setting. More towers of boxes were set up systematically, probably in other rooms she couldn't yet see, and it looked as if every inch of available surface space was reserved for, well, everything imaginable. She saw bits of machinery in piles on the coffee table and rolled-up blueprints stacked up on the threadbare couch. Labeled vials full of brown bits floating in green liquid were suspended from the top of the window frame so the sunlight could strike every square inch. A few potted plants were scattered here and there as well, though some had definitely seen better days. 

"You'd better keep your shoes on," Avery advised her guest as she breezed by and dropped her keys beside a heap of what could only be scavenged computer motherboards. "Don't know how many times I've stepped on gears or drill bits lost in the carpet. Legos are  _tame_ compared to the pain that causes." 

There wasn't really any place where Saoirse could sit, so she opted to stand near the corner of the living room and watch as Avery bustled about. She grabbed a camera and tripod, setting both up in an optimal spot for... something, though Saoirse couldn't quite glean their intended purpose from all her mumbling under her breath. After clearing an open space on one of the couches, Avery motioned with her hand for Saoirse to sit, so she did. "Are you thirsty or anything? I've got water or... water."

"Water's great. Thank you," Saoirse answered with a kind smile. "Um, so, what is all of this for?" By "this," she could only mean the utter chaos of a mechanic's living space.

Before answering, Avery disappeared around a corner and into what Saoirse assumed was the kitchen. She returned with a tall glass of clear liquid and was only a split second away from handing it over when a look of dread crossed her face. The scientist yanked the glass back with a start and hurried back to the kitchen again, all the while saying, "Wrong pitcher! Oh, crap, that could've been  _bad_." 

Saoirse tried not to think too much of what might have happened and gingerly accepted the new offered glass when Avery returned yet again. 

"Sorry," she said, sinking down into a cloth armchair that was spilling over with more rolls of blueprints; Avery didn't seem bothered by sitting on top of them. "I don't usually have guests, so it's kinda strange to have someone else in here."

"It's alright," Saoirse assured her sweetly before taking a sip of her water. Yep, it tasted normal. Crisis averted. "Okay, so you want to help ghosts, right? And protect humans from the bad ones?"

Avery nodded emphatically, clasping her hands around one of her crossed knees. "Yes, more than anything. They're so fascinating, and I feel like we've barely scratched the surface of what makes them tick. Oh, wait a second. Let me get the camera rolling first, and then we'll talk."

"Camera?" Saoirse repeated. Her eyebrows threatened to disappear under the edge of her hijab as she watched Avery press the power button on the camera and angle it to capture the best frame. Now that she could more or less see why it had been brought out in the first place, suddenly the set-up of the armchair facing the couch at a degree made it clear that the living room was designed like an interviewing space. 

"I gotta record everything we talk about," Avery explained, taking her seat with a crunch of compressing papers. "Can't miss a thing. If you know Relle personally, then I just  _know_ I'm going to learn something big today."

"I'll... I'll tell you what I can, but some of it has to stay totally off-record," Saoirse said slowly, leveling a serious stare at her new 'friend.' "For Relle's safety. And yours."

"Tell me what you can, then," Avery agreed, and Saoirse began after taking a deep breath and another measured sip of her water. 

~~~

When she opened her eyes, Relle first registered a strange sort of pressure on her ears, deafening her and making her throat go dry. Her tongue was numb inside of her mouth-- were her teeth still in her skull? She held up a gloved finger and pressed down on the two rows, checking to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be. Why could she taste ozone in her mouth, of all things, while her tongue was dead weight?

"Mmngh," she groaned as her head swam with questions and absolutely zero answers. She was still Relle Phantom, which meant that she had been lucky not to change back unconsciously. Lifting her hand had caused a sharp pain to flare up across her shoulder blades, too; a vague recollection of a parasol striking her there popped up in the back of her mind. 

A parasol probably meant Izora had been the cause of this bizarre problem, but she wasn't around anymore. Relle glanced around cautiously, slowly taking in the blankness of her surroundings. She was somewhere completely white with no discernible walls or ceiling. The empty space was lit by an evenly diffused yet pale light that didn't indicate a source of any sort. When she tried to make a noise, it echoed back to her from every direction and pressed down on her ears with twice as much intensity as that deafness had. She winced, instantly regretting it, and clapped her hands over her ears to try and negate its impact. 

'Where am I?' she wondered as she sat up and hugged her knees to her chest. She wasn't exactly cold, especially with her volcanic core to keep her toasty, but the lack of literally anything within this oppressively negative space seemed to leech from her body any source of comfort or hope. 'What happened, exactly?'

Relle tried to think back on everything that had led up to this point, but all that she remembered were pink and purple flames licking up the trunks and leaves of trees. The park, right, right. And Izora-- 'She cut me with a spoon!' she recalled indignantly. The green crusted-over gashes on her right arm were proof that she hadn't imagined that. What's more, the dull throb in her thigh reminded her of that fork whose tines had stabbed into her. They were already on their way toward healing up, but the four square holes were still visible through the breaks in the fabric of her costume. That, too, would regenerate with a little bit of downtime. 

'Izora, fighting, utensils... Then... a megaphone. The chief of police!' 

"Those people!" Relle gasped without thinking, and her words echoed back tenfold directly into her ears again. She screwed her eyes shut against their onslaught and waited, muscles tense, for them to abate. 

Now everything made sense again. She had been arrested by that government task force and electrocuted by the net that they used to catch her. Those gunshots had actually been the net launchers firing, and though she tried to dodge them all, avoiding one had put her right into the direct path of another and had been her undoing. She had been toppled to the ground, where a group of those militia men had surrounded and pinned her with the net. A faint smile graced her lips at the thought of how she had still managed to throw two of their burliest-looking people like they were children half her size-- well, children equal to her size. At five-foot-two, she didn't exactly display the toughest stature.

'They really did make a mistake' she though with a barely-suppressed, wistful sigh. Her core hummed with dread and anxiety deep within her at the fear of what the government planned to do with her. If she had a pulse in her ghost form, she would have been feeling it in her throat like bursts of thunder. Thoughts of illegal, secret experimentation and dissection flitted through her mind's eye with unchecked abandon. What if she caved and revealed her secret identity by accident? What if they kept her forever, and she never saw her family or her best friends ever again? 

Just the thought of that brought tears streaming down her face, and though she tried to muffle them with her head buried in her knees, the sounds of her restrained sobbing echoed in a never-ending current back to her already battered eardrums. It was like a negative feedback loop as the painful assault, unfamiliar and unexplainable, urged more tears out of her, which only worsened the sensation further. 

For some reason, this whole scenario seemed vaguely familiar, as if she had experienced this same situation once before. Just like last time, when she heard someone feminine say the words, "Why, hello there, dearie," the breath halted in her throat and her head whipped up to look for the speaker. An image of Dora flashed through her mind, but she could never hope to be so lucky to see her mentor again in a place like this. 

No, instead of a friendly face, she was looking up at Izora, the cause of all of this mess. Her ruffled dress was marred with grass and earth stains, and she was missing her fascinator as well as her parasol. The careful arrangement of dark curls atop her head now fell around her shoulders wildly in direct contrast with the restrained but cordial smile on her pink-painted lips. With a withered sigh, she fell to her knees across from Relle and arranged her skirts carefully around her unseen legs. "Really, dear, you have no idea how utterly  _boring_ it is to be stuck in here. If we are to be kept imprisoned, could they not have at the very least provided some means of entertainment? What uncivil hosts."

For some reason, Izora's voice didn't echo with the same effects that Relle's did, so it was bearable to listen to-- well, if her haughty version of conversation could ever be considered bearable. Relle tried to wipe away the evidence of her crying, though it was far too late to pretend like she hadn't just been sobbing her eyes out. Curse her anxiety attacks for always striking at the worst moments possible.

"Well, let me go first by apologizing for striking you across the back," Izora began after taking a few seconds to assess her enemy's dejected state of being. "It was unladylike of me, and particularly unsportsmanlike." 

Relle could barely stifle her scoff at that, and she paid the price for it in the form of the reverberations that came back to strike her. Izora lifted an eyebrow at the sight of Relle clapping her hands over her ears. "Huh... Well, it would appear that our prison has different effects on you. How peculiar..." 

She so wanted to retort, to try and deny it or explain what exactly was hurting her whenever she made noise, but that would have involved, well, making noise. Izora, understanding this and slowly realizing what it could mean for her, sat up a little straighter and brightened her smile. "Dear, let me tell you about the time I sat down for tea with the Queen  _herself_.  Oh my, what a scandal erupted from that!" 

'Oh, nooo' Relle moaned internally as she just knew that a tirade of gossip was about to hit her full force.

~

The passage of time was impossible to follow as Izora gabbed on and on about the smallest of details that she could recall about her previous life. Like with all ghosts, her true name had been lost to the annuls of history, and she filled in the blank spaces with her current pseudonym for the sake of ease. Relle tried not to groan every few minutes at the ocean of useless knowledge that buffeted her for what felt like hours upon hours in their shared empty space. The effort it took to suppress the reflex was impressive, she had to admit, though she didn't feel any sort of pride come of it.

Still, Relle had to admit, the one-sided conversation was preferable to her silent loop of negative feedback. Even if there was nothing better to do than listen to Izora talk about her favorite thing-- herself-- it was still only slightly better than nothing at all. At least Relle wasn't completely alone anymore in this blank prison. 

To her credit, Izora did at least try to ask her cellmate a question every so often, though it was quickly followed by the remembrance that Relle had been forced into muteness for her own sake. "At the  _very_   _least,_  you simply _must_ tell me whether or not you liked the gift I sent to you," Izora pleaded, and after a second Relle nodded with a watery smile on for good measure. 

"Splendid!" the Victorian ghost exclaimed gleefully. "I must say, in my day, I fended off the advances of many an indecent suitor with a similar hat pin. You must be sure to tell me all about the first man you skewer with it when that day arrives."

Though she wanted to deny the idea that she would ever impale someone with a hat pin, she couldn't exactly do much more than nod and offer a wan smile. 

By the time something finally happened, it could have only been a few minutes after that, but it also could have been hours as time seemed to have lost all meaning. A sudden rush of wind and the pneumatic hiss of a seal cracking open rocked their otherwise still world, causing Relle to cry out and Izora to gasp with relief. Bright light flooded their senses, and Relle felt her tears return tenfold as rippling noises assaulted her ears once again. Before she could fully register it, she was lying on her side and surrounded by the feet and legs of half of a dozen people. Her hands were back over her ears, though someone wearing thick rubber gloves wrenched one free and clapped down something heavy and hard over her wrist. It locked into place with a beep that she couldn't hear over the roaring that rattled around in her skull. 

A thick, wet substance was soaking into the palms of her gloves, and she could feel her nose running with a similar fluid. Was she bleeding? She had had more than enough experience to recognize when she was, though with her eyes squeezed shut she couldn't be entirely sure. Why was she suddenly so cold? Her core felt so distant that not even its nearly planetary warmth could touch her. 

Relle could dimly register the vibrations of feet stomping around her, and-- was she being dragged across the floor? There was a consistent tugging on her arms, though she tried to keep her hands over her ears to protect their tenderness. She squeaked over the smooth floor, which was almost as white as that prison had been, and dragged behind her thin smears of lime-green ghost blood. Then the dragging stopped and she was set down, where she curled up into a ball without opening her eyes. The footsteps blissfully faded away as if some higher power had dropped four walls of thick glass around her, and she was left in gentle silence. 

She sagged against the cool floor as if her bones had melted away, and as its chill seeped into her, a sudden bout of shivering overcame her seconds later. Her entire head hurt far too much for her to even attempt to sit up, but she did muster the courage to crack open one eye after the other. To her dismay, she was met with the sight of more white walls and floor, though she could at least be grateful that she could make noise without repercussion again. She still wore her gloves-- their gray-blue fabric had been marred by splotches of drying green ghost blood-- and her glowing blue hair fell over her eyes just enough to partially obscure her vision. So, she still hadn't been forced to change back by accident. Miracles upon miracles.

"So... cold," she wheezed, hugging herself to try and suppress the shivers wracking her muscular frame. Why in hell couldn't she get warm? 

That bracelet they had slapped onto her was a surprisingly heavy obtrusion against her skin. It fit so snugly around her wrist that it could have been tailored for her specifically, and it wouldn't budge no matter how she pushed and pried. Only an inch and a half in width, it was a matte silver and bisected by a black line; exactly opposite to one another and situated directly on top of that line, two small green nubs protruded out no more than a centimeter. Pushing down on them did absolutely nothing, so in the absence of her stimming ring, Relle resorted to massaging the bumps to try and calm her racing mind and heart. 

She stayed like that for an indefinite length of time, lying on her side and curled in around her hands as they worked their small ministrations over and over. The blood that had leaked out of her ears and nose clotted with no aid, but not before leaving tracks on her face, clothes, and the floor. How had all of her strength vanished so suddenly and completely? Relle glared at the bracelet when that thought crossed her mind-- it was definitely the culprit, if she had to take a stab. 

From where she lay, Relle couldn't see the "door" to her prison cell, so it was with great effort that she tried to look over her shoulder when a pressurized hiss cut through the otherwise impenetrable silence surrounding her. Someone in a white hazmat suit stood there with a long pole in hand. A loop of glowing cable stuck out of the end of their weapon, and the visor of their ensemble was tinted to protect their identity. 

"Approaching subject number 015RP," they intoned. They must have had some sort of vocal scrambler, because it was impossible to recognize any sort of distinguishing features within their voice. Relle sat up slowly, dropping her hands into her lap when she fully faced the newcomer. Her breath hitched with dread in her throat, where it seemed to solidify and spread to clog every inch of her airways. 

"Hello, Relle," the wrangler, for that was really the only way she could describe the person, said. "Can you understand me?"

With the same lethargic sluggishness that she had used to sit upright, Relle nodded once. Even the effort to do that simple task left stars streaking across her vision. 'God, my equilibrium is so messed up...!'

"Good, that's good," they said, taking a single step closer. The way they readjusted their grip on the pole made it clear that they were preparing to use it. "That means we can reason with each other. I need you to do me a favor, alright? We want to do some diagnostic tests before the end of the day, so if you cooperate with us, everything will go a lot smoother. Can you do that for me?"

She didn't answer right away as the words tumbled around in her frazzled skull. What kind of brain damage had she suffered after getting tazed, then stuffed into a vacuum of space, and then forcibly dragged out of it with no warning? Ghosts were generally incorporeal, but she was different! Her core was too densely manifested within this plane of reality, but it wasn't like these fledgling scientists could possibly know that. If they treated her with the same lack of physical consideration as they probably treated the other true ghosts, they might seriously hurt her ghost half-- or, maybe even worse, her dormant human half waiting to reemerge when she shifted back. 

"Please," she rasped in a low, grating voice. The wrangler came to a complete halt to make sure they didn't interfere with her response. "Pl-lease, d-don't... don't do this. I've only-- on-n-nly ever t-tried to  _help_."

There was no discernible light source in her cell, but a flare passed over the tinted visor staring at her as they shifted their gaze downward a few degrees. Their gloved grip tightened, and they started toward her with an authoratative stomp in their pace. Relle scrambled back on her hands in an instinctive response to flee, but there wasn't anywhere to go from there. 

 

 

"Okay, well... Wow, where do I even start? Not all ghosts are inherently bad or... mindless, I guess is the word someone would use. They don't all have a desire to make a mess or scare people. I think Relle called it something like negative and positive feedback. Basically, a ghost while it's forming its core will respond to its environment, and the stressors in its environment determine whether they have a destructive habit or not."

"This 'core,' is that what gives a ghost its form?"

 

 

"Please, you don't understand! I'm on your side! I just want to protect the city and its people!" The glowing noose around her neck bit into her skin and cut off her breath, try as she did to use her reserves to plead her case to anyone who would listen. She passed by more cells like hers; most of them were empty, though she saw that Izora was sitting idly at the back of one and picking at a tear in her skirts. Their eyes briefly met before Relle was yanked past, and in that second a connection of thought bridged the space between the two women. 

 

 

"Yes, that's how I understand it. A ghost's core is like its heart, so it's also its life source. Relle didn't suffer from enough negative feedback while she was developing as a ghost, so she retained her personality. She's still very much like a human in that regard."

"So, her mental state is still intact, and she doesn't suffer from a ghostly obsession... Interesting, very interesting. What else can you tell me about her, Saoirse?"

 

 

She couldn't summon any fire, or lava, or even a measly ectoplasmic ray to try and fight back. Each time Relle dug down into herself, searching for her core's strength, it was gone. It was like she was on one side of a raging river and it waited on the other, just barely within sight but utterly out of reach. These government agents really knew how to detain a ghost when they wanted to make sure she was completely subordinate to their whims. 

When she and the two wranglers-- another one had had to enter the fray when the first managed to get their noose around her neck. As soon as that painful cable tightened, she had reacted purely on instinct and had lunged toward her captor in an attempt to throw them off-- finally arrived at their destination, the sight of sleek lab tables and burning spotlights yanked the urge to puke right up into her throat. If not for the noose, she might have just gone ahead and sullied their sanitary workplace right then and there. Resolve burned like acid in her entrails, and she vowed not to make a single thing easy for these sick fucks that had decided to treat her like a wild and dangerous animal.

 

 

"Uhm... Turn the camera off, Avery. This part is too important to avoid, but I can't let anyone else hear it. Even by accident." When the camera was powered down and safely stowed away, and after Avery had proven that she didn't have any recording devices on her person, Saoirse sucked in a deep breath and let it out in a rush.

"Relle is  _alive_ , Avery. She's human, but she also has the abilities of a ghost. She's my best friend and my girlfriend, and right now the government has her locked away like some sort of alien  _freak show!_ " 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said in the intro, this chapter took something of a dark turn near the end. Okay, this was kinda bound to happen, so yeah. Hope is not yet lost, however! Please do not give up hope, my dear readers.
> 
> Please leave a kudos and comment your thoughts on the story so far! I look forward to seeing you in the next chapter~


	7. Checkpoints

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RECAP: 
> 
> "Relle is _alive_ , Avery. She's human, but she also has the abilities of a ghost. She's my best friend and my girlfriend, and right now the government has her locked away like some sort of alien _freak show!_ "

Saoirse was grateful that Avery had turned the camera off, because in that moment, she couldn't help how her face screwed up with the onset of ugly tears. Two, then three and four, dripped from her chin and landed with audible plops into the glass of water she clutched between her thighs. The creak of furniture springs and the rustling of crunched papers were the only indications that Avery had risen from her seat before her hand hesitantly settled on Saoirse's upper arm, where it stayed for as long as it took for Saoirse to compose herself and wipe away her tears. Her makeup remained intact as ever, even when she brushed at her eyes. 

"Sorry, I... I think I'm still in shock," she murmured, and Avery broke their contact but didn't move away. She crouched at the edge of the couch and looked up with a sympathetic expression at her guest. "I can't believe they  _arrested_ her. If her secret gets out... I don't even want to imagine what will happen." 

"I don't think I understand, Saoirse," Avery said, keeping her tone even and low. "How can Relle be alive and a ghost?" 

Saoirse tasted her lipstick when she bit her lower lip. Her pink tourmaline eyes downcast and focused on the rim of her glass, which her thumb traced absentmindedly, she mulled over what exactly to say. It was probably best to start from the beginning, which was almost a year ago to that very day... 

"Her name is actually Camry-- Camirelle, if we're being technical."

~

By the time she was done with her run-down of past events, Avery was back in her chair and staring blankly at a spot somewhere above Saoirse's head. Had this been a cartoon, there definitely would have been steam coming out of her ears from all the gears turning-- or maybe she would have seen smoke as Avery's brain stopped working altogether. 

"I don't... This is so, so weird," she whispered, slowly rising from a reclined position and bending forward over her knees. "If she's alive, what kind of effects does her ghostly core have on her living body? And how does she maintain her core without an external source of energy? All the data from my dives into the lake has proven that  _that_ is the purpose of the Nether Dimension."

"We call it the Ghost Zone," Saoirse supplied. Her voice cracked a little from the wear and tear of crying, even if for only a moment, and she took another sip of her water only to grimace. Salty. 

"I have to find out more," Avery said suddenly and bolted to her feet. "We have to get Relle out of that facility." Her fists curled with determination at her sides.

Saoirse remained seated and set her glass on the edge of the overly cluttered coffee table. "That's what I was hoping you'd say. But, how are we going to do it?"

"I... I'm not sure," she answered, her voice halting with uncertainty. "I think I have a connection inside the program that the government is probably using to study ghosts, but it won't be easy to contact him. Besides, we'd need a plan for getting her out without getting caught. This is... This would technically be treason we're committing, Saoirse. Oh, god..." 

"At this point, every time I've helped Relle has been treason for me," Saoirse said firmly as she also stood. "So, that's nothing new. I've told you a lot of really secret, important stuff, Avery. Please tell me I didn't make a mistake in trusting you."

She took a deep breath, then let it out in a rush. "I  _can_  trust you to keep all of this a secret, right?" 

A heavy silence fell between them as Saoirse stared down Avery, who looked back with a stunned expression. Then she cleared her throat and nodded. "Yes, Saoirse, you can trust me. I swear I won't tell anyone about Relle.

"Now, c'mon. Let me show you someplace that  _I_  keep secret."

~

Whatever this secret place was, Saoirse certainly hadn't expected it to be hidden within the confines of an extra large storage garage. Avery drove Saoirse down to the lot and pulled up alongside the unit furthest from all the others. Saoirse stepped out of the cabin alongside an avalanche of CD cases that had been precariously stacked up around her foot space. There was a lot of extra security to keep this particular unit locked: a combination keypad and fingerprint scanner were fixed to the door, and heavy-looking deadbolts barred any possible forced entry. Avery put in her code while making sure that not a single soul saw her password, and soon the door unlocked itself with an ominously heavy  _click_. 

"C'mon, quick," Avery hissed, beckoning Saoirse inside urgently. She rushed in without a second thought, and Avery pulled the door shut after sending a paranoid stare out in all directions. The lights came on a second later, and Saoirse was met with the sight of a rudimentary laboratory. 

"Oh..." she whispered, her eyes darting everywhere to try and take it all in. Five computers, old and new alike, took up an entire table on their own, and a printer sat on the floor to one side of them. Cables were bundled together and secured to the floor, where they spread out in all directions like the web of a mechanical spider. Two more folding tables had been slammed together and covered with tablecloths, atop which boxes and tools were scattered about in the sort of disarray that somehow also hinted at something of an intentional system. Suddenly, the state of Avery's apartment made a lot more sense.

But what really stole the show, once Saoirse noticed its presence, was the round, seven-foot-tall thing covered with a huge blue tarp and pressed against the back wall. "Whoa, what is  _that?_ " she asked eagerly while stabbing a finger in its direction. 

"That's still a work in progress," Avery said simply. "Don't touch it, okay?" 

Saoirse nodded, though she couldn't help but think 'That still doesn't answer my question.' Being denied the answer had only made her curiosity deepen.

"Actually, try not to touch anything," Avery amended after a second of rifling through a stack of boxes on the long workbench. "Some of this stuff is kinda volatile if you don't handle it properly. And I don't want any of my data getting interfered with." 

"Got it," Saoirse replied. She drew her arms close to her sides and followed Avery around with care, though there was no rule against her eyes roaming over everything. "So, this is where you do all your research, huh?"

"Yep," Avery sighed. "Not much of a lab, is it? But it's mine. I've managed to gather a lot of insight toward ghostly power sources-- though, now that I know about cores, I may have to revisit a couple of hypotheses." 

"And what in here is going to help us get Camry--  _Relle_ out of the government's hands?" 

Avery didn't answer right away and instead wove around tables and piles of machinery to stand in front of the tall tarp-covered mystery object. She grasped one end of the tarp and pulled carefully, easing it down to slowly reveal the dull panels and exposed wires of what could vaguely resemble a metal donut. "This is," she finally said, waving a hand toward her giant creation. 

Saoirse felt her jaw go slack but didn't bother to pick it up off the floor. "I, uh... Wow. What is that?" she asked after recovering from her shock.

"It's a prototype portal into the-- what did you call it? The 'Ghost Zone?'" Saoirse nodded, so Avery continued. "Okay, yeah. That. I've been studying the portal under the lake in the hopes of figuring out how to replicate it myself. As soon as we get stable access to that new dimension, then a  _literal_ whole new world of possibilities will open up for us all!" 

"That's ambitious," Saoirse commented as she approached with caution. "You're not worried about giving ghosts a new access point into our world?" 

Avery shook her head emphatically and set the tarp down in a heap to the left of the dormant machine. "Not really. Besides, it doesn't work right now anyway. That's the thing, though--  _this_ is our ticket into that facility."

~

Even in the eternal summer hours of June, the sun had long since dropped below the mountainous horizon by the time Avery pulled her pickup truck in front of the Mahadeo residence. Now armed with a game plan and each other's contact information, Saoirse and Avery parted for the night with the promise to meet up again in the early morning. There was so much to be done, and if they wanted to make sure they got to Relle in time to protect her most important secret, they would have to act fast. 

Eventually, Saoirse had called her and Camry's parents back, though she couldn't really say much about what she and her new acquaintance were up to. Like Avery had said before, they were more or less committing an act of treason now that the government itself was involved in the detainment of ghosts. They couldn't afford any leaks. 

On top of that, they couldn't afford to fail.

~~~

As Ariadna lay in her borrowed bed and stared up at a blank ceiling, the familiar weight of despair doubled its pressure in her softly-beating heart. Her mother and brother were gone, snatched away by a faceless man with unclear intentions and unfathomable magical power. She had run to Camry, the strongest person Ariadna knew personally and the only one who had had any chance of fixing the catastrophe that her life had spiraled into so quickly. Now she was gone, too-- beaten down and whisked away by more faceless men with unclear intentions and terrifying motives. 

Camry's parents were still downstairs despite the late hour, not really saying anything to one another or looking at anything in particular. Ari had seen her own mother wear a similar expression sometimes, mostly when Maria thought she was alone in the room. For someone who couldn't accurately gauge her own volume levels, Ari knew how to be sneaky when she wanted. Nevertheless, she never could quite figure out what might make her mother look so weathered and full of dread. Only the events of the last two months had revealed that answer.

Ariadna let out a sigh and turned onto her side, burying her face into the pillow just long enough for the urge to breathe to become too great to ignore. 'If only we had left to look for them before Izora attacked... Maybe this wouldn't have happened' she thought wistfully. 

What was she going to do now? Stay with the Dowells until something else happened? She couldn't just sit around and count down the days until her father realized where she was and came to retrieve her. Even if Dude had managed to lie to him well enough to cover her escape, that didn't mean this was a sustainable course of action. Someone would slip up, or she would accidentally call his attention to herself. What then?

~~~

"Alright, I want a full week of round-the-clock monitoring," the director said to his gathered team of scientists. All were seated around a long table, tapping away at their laptop keyboards or picking apart case files. The director, as much as he didn't care to appear ignored, knew they were listening as they worked, and continued. "Establishing a baseline for this specimen is paramount to the study of this entity. I want  _no errors_. Understood?" 

He received a hummed chorus of affirmations and nodded, satisfied. "Now, if I could direct your attention to this recording." An invisible screen flickered to life with color beside him, and he extracted a laser pointer from his jacket to indicate the feed. Most of the available area was filled with charts that fluctuated rhymically at different intervals, while the top right corner displayed an empty human outline with an extra hot cluster of temperature readings where its lungs would have been. 

"As you can see, this particular specimen does not register in the same ways as all the previous do on our equipment. Even with the inhibitor in place and functioning, there is still a massive amount of residual ectoplasmic energy generating its intradimensional form. Proceed with the utmost caution when handling this specimen-- it nearly injured three staff members when it was taken to the scanners for the first time." 

"Can we be sure that residual energy is undead in origin when it registers as hot on our scanners?" one of the scientists piped up as she raised her pen to grab the director's attention. "All of the other detained specimens have a bundle of much colder energy at their centers." 

"We can't yet say if it is undead or not, though it very well may be just another higher form of this same energy," the director hypothesized carefully. He moved the pointer down to the charts and indicated one in particular that fluctuated just over once per second. "There is evidence to support that this reading is picking up on the specimen's core as it is still functioning, though at a slower rate than usual, despite the inhibitor blocking the production of usable energy. Inez and Wei, I want you both working on designing a stronger inhibitor with this specimen's specific nether-signature in mind. 

"Nijima, Arcturo, Leon: you three are in charge of gathering and interpreting any and all data from the scanners. Make sure nothing slips through the cracks. McAllister, we're going to need all of your insight on ghostly anatomy as soon as we finish with the superficial examinations. Once we collect what we need, we'll need to get a much closer look into how this specimen was formed."

~~~

In the isolated world that was Avery's laboratory, time didn't quite move at the same pace as the rest of the world. If it hadn't been for Saoirse's alarms set as reminders for prayer and their own bodily functions reminding them to eat and sometimes sleep, the two of them would have forgone a lot of necessary chores in their efforts to 'finish' the proto-portal. Neither saw the light of day once they got to working, and the hours ticked by without either noticing. After chugging her third energy drink since starting in the early hours of the morning, Saoirse knew she had to have broken a new record for staying up late. 

Her hands were streaked with grease and glowing ectoplasm, and her knees ached from continuous kneeling on the concrete floor in order to hold parts of the portal in place while Avery welded them together, but a swell of pride lifted her spirits at the thought of their plan. Makeshift and spotty as it was, it was absolutely better than the despair Saoirse had initially resigned herself to. None of it would be possible without a crucial first step, though, and Saoirse sat back with bated breath as Avery made the fate-deciding call almost a full forty-eight hours after they had gotten to work. 

"Dr. Soren-- Yes, hello! Good morning! This is Avery Rheasson," Avery said in a bright tone, barely able to restrain her excitement at the call actually going through. "I-- No, no, nothing like that. That ship sailed a long time ago, believe me. What am I calling you for? Well, you see, I think I've managed to do something pretty big in the study of the nether dimension-- Yes, a big break-through. Literally. The problem is, I think there's something I'm missing, and I was thinking collaboration would be what this project needs to get further off the ground.

"Oh, I heard about that. Yes, you must be very busy with studying. I understand. Maybe I could--? No, Doctor, please hear me out. This is enormous! I've just nearly managed to crack the seal on the neighboring dimension!"

Avery paused for a startlingly long time, bringing Saoirse so close to the edge of her seat that she was basically standing. The scientist hummed an affirmative note every few seconds, listening intently at what was being said to her on the other end of the line. Finally, one-word answers came out of her like gunshots. "Stable. No. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Okay. Yes. Well... No. No. Okay."

Then, at long last, Avery smiled again. "Thank you so much, Doctor. I just know this will benefit our studies in ways we can't yet imagine. I look forward to seeing you again. Goodbye." 

The call ended and Avery turned to grin at Saoirse. "We have our in." 

Saoirse positively shrieked with delight and launched into a jump, throwing her hands high into the air. "Ah! I can't believe it! Avery, you did it!"

"We did it!" she reiterated, beaming and grabbing the younger girl's hands in her own for a brief moment to share their joyous relief. "You've been an incredible helper, Saoirse. Okay, now listen closely. We have about an hour and a half to get everything ready for when they arrive to collect the portal. You'll have to make yourself scarce by then, but we'll keep in touch. You remember the rendezvous point?"

"The empty lumber shed by the abandoned railroad tracks," Saoirse recited like clockwork. "I'll pick up medical supplies, too-- just in case."

"Keep your GPS off and your data use to a minimum. No Wifi, no calls longer than a minute, and no texting," Avery warned her carefully. "They don't have much of a reason to suspect your involvement, but we have no idea where their eyes and ears could be right now, and we can't risk capture."

Saoirse nodded emphatically, though the weight of her eyelids threatened to drag her head far forward. "Okay. Okay... Wow, I can't believe this is really happening. How do you plan on getting her out without getting caught?" 

"I guess I'll just have to see what opportunities present themselves when I get in there."

~~

The uniformed men arrived right on time and followed Avery's careful instructions for handling her creation as they loaded it onto a transport. Once everything was gathered up and stowed away safely, she jumped into her own pickup and followed the crew to a spot not far out of town, to her mild surprise. It was underground, as fate would have it, and situated beneath one of the massive pillars that had once comprised the barrier that quarantined Bailey Lake less than a year ago. The barrier itself was inactive, of course, but it waited silently for when it would be useful again one day.

She stuck like glue to the tail pipe of the transport and was waived through the checkpoints as soon as the authorization from Dr. Soren passed. Even with the regulated temperature within the cabin of her truck, Avery noticed that her surroundings were growing colder the further she inched inside the base, and electric lighting very quickly took over for the sun's rays. Walls of modified concrete rose up around her on all sides; for future reference, she made mental notes of how long it took her to drive through the tunnel and checkpoints. 

Avery couldn't help how her heart pounded in her chest so severely. There was no way this would work, right? Stealing from a top-secret government base was so risky, and what she had to lose should she fail was tremendous. 'I guess it does say something about me if I'm willing to go this far just to shed a little more light on a mystery' she thought to herself, pursing her lips to one side in a pensive frown. 

'Okay. Deep breaths. We've got a plan... sort of. It's all we need. We can do this.  _I_  can do this.' 

Her facade was impenetrable as she was greeted by Dr. Soren himself at the front gates of the underground facility. The ceiling rose a lot higher than she would have expected-- they must have been a lot farther down below the surface. As the director of the program behind researching ghosts, or, as they were officially known, creatures of the nether dimension, Dr. Soren held all authority in directing his team of experts and controlling the flow of information both in and out. A security detail consisting of two armed guards followed him out to meet Avery, who grinned with an excitement she summoned in order to hide her nervousness. 

"I can't wait to get started on this with you, Rheasson," Soren said after shaking her hand cordially. "I must admit, though I didn't exactly think my teachings would follow you this far in life, I'm glad they have. Your mind is one of the brightest I have ever had the chance of cultivating."

Avery's cheeks predictably flushed at the compliments, as self-praising as they were. "I'm just grateful for the opportunity to work with you again, Doctor. I should warn you: the portal isn't exactly the prettiest picture you'll ever see, but she's a promising work in progress. Something tells me that--" 

"Let's not discuss this out here," Soren interrupted her swiftly, though without malice, and Avery agreed silently before following him inside the building. It was all walls and no windows, painted an inconspicuous brown on the outside and a hospital-grade white within. At the front desk, Avery was issued an access key card and name tag, which she clipped to her jacket before donning a white lab coat. 

'Wow, it's been a while since I've worn one of these' flitted through her mind as she straightened the spotless lapels. 

Dr. Soren then led his newest assistant into a large, sparsely furnished room further into the building, where the same crew was busy unloading and arranging the portal and its extra trappings. Avery grinned at the sight of so many available outlets in the walls-- not to mention the up-to-date computers, scanners, printers, and especially the enormous space itself! 

"I could get used to a workspace like this," she commented, absentminded, to Dr. Soren as she sauntered over to her portal to check it over for any scrapes or dings. 

"Yes, well, I should remind you that this partnership is entirely conditional, Rheasson," he piped up, taking on his usual serious tone. "We need to see results, and promising ones, if your stay here is to be prolonged. As it is, I will be accompanying your research only for a short time. One of our specimens has proven to be... a rather difficult puzzle to solve." 

A thrum of anxiety pulsed through Avery then. "You mean, uh, one of the ghosts that was arrested recently?" 

Dr. Soren hummed to confirm her suspicions. "Relle Phantom, as I'm sure you know it. Despite the custom-made inhibitor and all of the security measures we've taken to keep it docile, it still manages to produce a stunning amount of energy. Containing it when it's angry is more than a little bit of a challenge." 

Avery paused, her back to Dr. Soren as her hand lingered on the dormant portal's control panel, and then she smacked it with a surprising force while letting out a wordless shout. " _That's it!_ "

"What is?" he asked, raising a well-trimmed eyebrow at her energetic antics. Avery spun to face him and ran over, gesticulating with her hands wildly as she tried to form a coherent sentence.

"That's it!" she repeated. "That's what this portal needs! We can kill two birds with one stone, Doctor!"

Soren took a slight step back and smiled faintly. "I don't think I follow, Rheasson. Care to elaborate on your scheming?"

"Portals consume  _massive_ amounts of energy to remain open, and so far I haven't been able to gather enough to actually pierce through the veil-- but what if we take this ghost's excess energy and wire it into the portal? It might be enough to give us stable access to the Nether Dimension!" 

There, the plan was finally solid in her mind. As soon as she was given access to Relle Phantom and the right opportunity struck, she would snatch her and run. It had always been clear to Avery that she would likely be leaving the portal behind, and she had already come to terms with that reality. Besides, she could always rebuild it one day. 

Dr. Soren frowned then, reaching up to hold his smooth chin as he thought. "I'm afraid that you're asking quite a bit of me here, Rheasson. Subject 015RP is too unique a specimen to risk, especially if we lose it to your machine. Besides, it's too volatile to let out of maximum security at the moment. I'll get you some strong units of nether energy to begin testing your hypothesis, though." 

He turned to go, disappearing from sight with the pneumatic hiss of the door sliding shut. Avery tried to keep her frustrated snarl from showing too heavily on her face; cameras were inevitably located at key points in the rafters of her hangar-like operating space, and she couldn't give her true intentions away so carelessly. 

'Dammit!' she thought. Her hands busied themselves with rolling open and pinning down blueprints onto the workbenches around her. 'I could've sworn that would work. Alright, alright, this is fine. This is  _fine_. I'll earn his trust and make this work. I can't let something as stupid as  _regulations_ stop me now.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go, full steam ahead! Who's excited? I am!
> 
> As always, comments and kudos are super appreciated! I hope you join me in the next chapter when it comes out!


	8. Fire It Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrightie guys, here we go. Shit's about to get real-- well, realer than it already has been, which, let's face it, has been pretty damn real so far.

As Avery began to get "settled" in her new workspace, she valiantly fought down the urge to vomit. Anxiety had filled her insides with concrete and lead. There was no way this would work! If she couldn't get to Relle soon, the other scientists would find something pivotal about her physical makeup and tighten their security. On the other hand, Relle's ferocity against her captors might make them tighten their security anyway, which entailed a dozen more roadblocks on Avery's part of this mission. 

On the  _other_ other hand, she might never get to Relle without the proper clearance, and it didn't seem like she would get any of that if she wasn't involved in the actual research on their 'specimens.' Everyone she had spoken to so far only concerned themselves with their engineering projects, and it didn't seem like there was much in the way of mingling between the anatomical and the mechanical halves of their program's ghostly research. In fact, Dr. Soren didn't deliver his promised "nether energy units" himself but via an assistant and a gurney. 

'Is he too busy with studying Relle?' Avery wondered when the occasional squeak of the gurney wheels announced its arrival less than twenty minutes after Dr. Soren's departure. 'I hope she's doing okay in there...' 

~~

"Sir, I'm detecting a change in disposition," Nijima announced as she cautiously bent down over the subject of her interest. 015RP, manacled to the table via its ankles and wrists, had fallen silent a number of hours ago, but until then it had still retained a defiance in its eyes. Now they were unfocused, almost dazed, and seemed sunken in-- though, maybe that was just the lights casting odd shadows over its face. "The subject isn't responding as it was before."

"Corporeal temperature is elevated compared to the initial scans," Leon announced after a cursory glance at his laptop-sized screen. "And its center's 'pulse' has picked up its pace." 

"Could it be struggling to maintain its form?" Arcturo wondered aloud, also bending over the subject with a little more bravery than he should have. 

"Its new inhibitor is tailored to its nether-signature, so it's possible," Leon said as he, too, got a good look at 015RP for himself. "We'd better get a structural density reading to make sure it won't go supernova." 

Nijima scoffed and leaned back to adjust her ponytail. "Can't have McAllister getting pissed at us for costing him another dissecting frog. Let's get Dr. Soren's opinion on this while we're at it."

~

"Alright, alright, I'm here," Dr. Soren announced as he stepped through the swinging doors and into the laboratory. "What's this about a structural malfunction?"

Leon stepped up eagerly to walk his superior through their observations as they approached the metal table in the center of the room. "Doctor, 015RP's central readings are elevated and it's stopped fighting back so much. We haven't gotten so much as a word out of it in nearly five hours." 

"Is the new inhibitor functioning properly?" Dr. Soren asked, and he received three nods. "This must just be a side effect of its nether energy production being blocked, then." 

"But, Doctor, wouldn't its central temperature have gone down if that were the case?" Nijima pointed out. "It's getting hotter, not colder." 

"This ghost's nether signature runs hot instead of cold, so it stands to reason that it would react in ways opposite to our past observations," he said smoothly before leaning over to examine 015RP's listless expression. With its sphalerite eyes at half-mast and a crimson flush across its face, it didn't so much as acknowledge his close proximity. Dr. Soren hummed low to himself and stepped back, folding his arms across his chest. "If it's working harder to preserve itself, then its central temperature would naturally rise as well." 

The quiet squeak of the intercom activating echoed above their heads before a man with a young-sounding voice spoke up. "Dr. Soren, you've been requested in Hangar C. It seems like there's a problem." 

Dr. Soren groaned under his breath and let his head hang back for all of half of a second. "Wonderful," he groaned, the epitome of sarcasm. A small part of him was beginning to remember why Ms. Rheasson, despite her brilliant mind for all things mathematical and mechanical, had ultimately had to quit his programs in the past. If she couldn't even get a handle on one project of her own design, how could she possibly be a good fit for his research team?

He turned to go, but not before offering one last piece of advice. "Use this window of calm to collect whatever samples you were having difficulty getting before. We don't know if 015RP will snap out of this daze soon or not." 

When Dr. Soren arrived at Hangar C, which he could have sworn he had already visited too many times for one day despite it only being the late morning, he found Rheasson circling like a vulture around her portal and muttering to herself. He noted that the nether energy containers were hooked into the machine's sides, but nothing was happening. The portal still lay dormant, though it remained to be seen what was the cause. 

"Is there a problem, Rheasson?" Dr. Soren inquired once he had drawn close enough to be within earshot but not so close as to disrupt her elliptical orbit. 

"Damn right there is," she grumbled in response while peevishly flicking her reddish-brown hair back over one shoulder. "I designed this machine on a foundation I created using whatever materials I could find around the city, Doctor. That means that I was mostly gathering energy samples left over from Relle Phantom's fights. I don't think I can calibrate the portal to work without a matching nether signature." Her chrysocolla eyes bore into his ruby irises, imploring him to actually listen to her demands. "These units you sent over are too aligned with the ice element to rev up the portal." 

"Wait-- what was that you just said about elements?" he said suddenly, taking a step toward her. "This energy is aligned with 'ice?'" 

Avery fought down the urge to smile. 'Gotcha.' "Yes, Doctor. In my studies, I've hypothesized that the cores of a ghost can be aligned with a common earthly element like fire or ice. It seems to direct the nature of their abilities. Relle Phantom must have a fiery core seeing as how her attacks are almost always based on fire." 

"The data from her scans have all come back in support of a theory like that," Dr. Soren admitted, cupping his chin for a moment. His mind was made up in less than ten seconds from that point on. "Rheasson, put your portal on hold and come with me. I want your interpretation on 015RP's analysis." 

~

Avery tried not to pick at her fingers and clothing seams as she followed Dr. Soren down numerous corridors and through half of a dozen password-protected, deadbolted doors. Was it just her, or was it getting warmer? She pulled at the collar of her shirt to try and fan herself a little when no one was looking. 

'God, I feel like I just rode a rollercoaster after gorging myself on carnival food' she thought with a long internal groan. Sweat had definitely broken out along her brow. She was finally getting closer to Relle, so it was time to look for rescue routes while being as discreet as possible. 

"In here," Soren said before he held open said door for her and stepped in after. It clicked shut and locked with a muffled beeping. 

Spread out before her eyes, the sight of the lab twisted Avery's insides that much further into a Gordian knot. Half of a dozen large and expensive-looking machines were placed in strategic locations around the well-lit room, and in the center was a metal table that had to be extremely uncomfortable to lie on. Shackled to it in spread-eagle position lay Relle herself, almost as unmoving as a corpse. The glare from the fluorescent lights reacted strangely to her own ghostly white outline, making her look ten times paler where her skin wasn't flushed bright red. The rapid, erratic rise and fall of her chest was the only sign of 'life' in her and sent a pang of fear through Avery. Plenty of all-nighters spent hyper-focusing on her work had made the scientist acutely familiar with the signs of dehydration and exhaustion. 

'Can I  _really_ do this?' Avery wondered. Standing over the 'specimen' and pretending to be aloof, she took in the security measures the other scientists had taken to protect themselves. The restraints on the table were charged with nether energy to prevent Relle from phasing herself free, and the inhibitor locked around her left wrist was pinging with a gentle green light every few seconds to prove that it was working. Avery struggled for a moment to recount how much time had passed since Relle's capture; including the evening it had happened and the time it had taken her and Saoirse to get the portal in "peak performance condition," they were approaching the seventy-two hour milestone.  

One of the scientists whose name had definitely been mentioned but not registered in her brain offered her a tablet, which she took with a nod of thanks. Relle's core readings were displayed in graphs that tracked her in real-time, picking up on a rhythmic fluctuation that only Avery knew to be a very muffled human heartbeat. How could these brilliant minds not see it for themselves? Avery and Relle could only count themselves as miraculously lucky in that regard. 

"Well, this definitely shows that it's got a fire-based core," she announced, switching back easily into her 'Rheasson' persona. Now was not the time to slip up-- not when she was so close to succeeding. "Have you given it any water or breaks from testing?" 

Her question was met with a resounding silence from the other three technicians, which made the answer clear enough. "Uh," Nijima, a willowy Japanese woman with a mid-length ponytail, intoned, "why would we give it any water? Ghosts subsist on nutrients that don't exist naturally in our world." 

"While that is the case, it might do her some good to experience something like her home dimension," Avery pointed out. Her mistake in calling Relle a "her" passed mostly unnoticed, but no one who caught it tried to correct her. "As the majority of the other specimens in this facility likely possess cold-acclimated cores, it makes sense that the Nether Dimension is also a cold realm, and we might be able to revive this one's spirit with the gentle reminder."

In all honesty, Avery just wanted to get some water into Relle's body. Three days was the human limit for going without water-- what would that become when said human also has a volcanically hot core bundled up inside of her, probably burning off her water reserves that much faster? It was little wonder why Relle's skin looked so dry and her expression had drifted into a near-faint. 

Dr. Soren hummed to himself as he mulled it over. "No to the water-- I don't want any earthly interference tampering with our readings-- but take 015RP back to its holding cell. You three have been hard at work, so I think it's time you took a little break and got some rest. Excellent work, everyone."

He turned to Avery and smiled. "Rheasson, I'd love to have a look at your notes on these "core elements," as you called them. Perhaps we can acquire some of this one's nether energy while it's recuperating and use it to test your portal theory, too." 

Avery smiled back at him and nodded. "That sounds perfect, Doctor. Thank you." 

~~

She checked her watch: early evening was upon her, which meant that Saoirse was likely still waiting at their rendezvous point. Though the going was slow, dropping that little nugget of information on core elements had done Avery's mission a world of good. Dr. Soren always favored progress over stagnation in his endeavors, so to him the seemingly minor hint had been like a meaty bone to a dog. 'Thank you for that one, Saoirse.' 

Back in her hangar, Avery kept herself 'occupied' for the cameras when, in reality, she was just tinkering with bits of incompatible machinery that she kept around the portal. As her fingers fit pieces together and separated them in random patterns, her mind wandered through a checklist of her current situation. Relle was still safely resting in her cell, more or less away from prying eyes of real people but likely still under half of a dozen cameras' guard. There were still a lot of checkpoints to go through in order to reach the outside world, but Avery would need a really good reason to leave without looking suspicious. What's more, how in the world would she manage to sneak Relle out of maximum security? There had to be a million ways this stunning lack of a plan could go wrong. 

Her chrysocolla eyes fell on her portal, and with a resigned sigh she resolved to do what had to be done. 

'So long, hard work.' 

~

Approximately two hours later, Avery wandered the halls of the facility 'aimlessly' in search of 'the break room.' Hunger pangs thrummed in her middle, reminding her that it was necessary to human life to eat food every once in a while, but she couldn't bother with something so trivial right then and there. She had to find a way to get Relle out without being noticed. 

She turned a corner, so lost in her thoughts that she didn't even see the assistant holding the cardboard box until it was too late to stop. They collided in a shower of empty CD cases and surprised shrieks, and while Avery fell on her rear, the assistant remained upright but lost his grip on his cargo. The cases scattered all across the hall in a fan-like array, leaving the assistant groaning with regret. 

"Dammit!" he exclaimed. "Watch where you're going, will ya?" 

"Sorry-- I am  _so_ sorry," Avery rushed to say as she picked herself up off the floor and immediately knelt to help him recover the cases. The first one she picked up wasn't cracked-- in fact, none of them looked to be damaged. What were they made of to be so resilient? "Uh, what are these?"

"Transport devices," he ground out, still steaming after their fateful collision. "They compact a ghost's corporeal form into something small and easy to manage. Now, give them back."

She did, though she couldn't believe her luck. These were what the task force used to capture their targets? But they were so small and inconspicuous--

Oh.

_Oh_.

"Here," Avery said as she packed in another handful of cases she had scooped up off of the floor. "Sorry, again. I was lost in thought and wasn't watching where I was going." 

The assistant let out a heavy breath and seemed to expel some of the salt from his veins with it. "Me, too. Are you hurt?"

"No, I'm alright," she replied. They parted ways with terse nods after that, and Avery kept her hands firmly in her pockets and her eyes trained on the path ahead. The cool, rounded corner of a case pressed against her palm and sent a tingling promise of progress up her spine.

~

Fifteen minutes later, she was at the outermost security check for the holding cell area and faced with the roadblock of a guard who was none too pleased to be disturbed so late in the day. 

"Look, Doctor, we can only allow access past this point to members of a certain clearance level, and you don't have it," she insisted for the second time. 

"I know, and I understand," Avery said, imploring the guard as desperately as she dared. Was this suspicious to try and go beyond her bounds as a newcomer to the facility? "Trust me, I do. But Dr. Soren promised me a sample of 015RP's nether signature, and if I don't get that right away I won't have enough time to test it before the end of the night."

"Then Dr. Soren can give you the clearance you need to get it, or he will get the sample for you himself," the guard said, her brow stern and low just like her folded arms. "Until then, I can't let you past this point." 

Avery muttered something unladylike under her breath and resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Alright, alright, I understand. Time to make a call..." She stalked off after that, still muttering to herself as her brain shuffled through her options. 

Ten minutes later, a tall figure covered from head to toe in a poofy white hazmat suit confidently strode up to the guard and handed over his badge. The guard took it and nodded, allowing him past without sparing an unnecessary word. He gave her a polite nod and kept going, the perfect picture of ease. 

'Oh my god, I can't believe that  _worked_ ' Avery screamed internally. Wow, she really needed to brush her teeth-- her breath inside the bulky suit was  _terrible_. The transport case was inside the suit with her, at the ready once she arrived at her destination. 

And arrive she did shortly after a tense security scan at the second checkpoint before the cell blocks. The ID she had swiped from a doctor in the hall cleared without a hitch, and she was allowed in with a cautious warning of, "Good luck in there, Dr. McAllister," that she silently nodded at to accept. 

Avery's booted footsteps echoed dully in the quiet hallway lined with clear doors that offered absolutely no privacy to their prisoners. She couldn't stop her eyes from wandering; to her, most of the ghosts were strangers, low-powered or unable to fully maintain a solid-looking form, but she definitely recognized Izora. The Victorian ghost sat with a perfectly straight back against the far wall of her cell and stared out at the blank world before her. With her hands folded pristinely in her lap, she could have been some rich little girl's porcelain doll-- well, maybe if it had been dragged all across a field from the back of a horse-drawn carriage. 

The ghost's dully-glowing garnet eyes flicked over to Avery when she passed into her field of vision, but that was the only acknowledgement she received. 'I wish I could help you, too...' she thought, biting her lower lip for a second before continuing on. She had appearances to keep up, and lingering in front of another ghost's cell wouldn't look good for the cameras. 

After striding past two empty cells, Avery screeched to a halt and backpedaled to look into Relle's own little slice of hell. She was crumpled in a heap like an old ragdoll forgotten on the spotless floor. The side of her hair and bangs had fallen across her eyes, and one crooked arm propped her head up like a makeshift pillow. When Avery swiped her stolen ID card through the door's lock, Relle didn't even so much as twitch a finger. 

"Relle?" Avery whispered, drawing close and kneeling down beside the fallen girl. Her ghostly glow was faded, no longer the least bit visible under the harsh fluorescent lights, and her breathing was so shallow and erratic that it couldn't have been doing her any good. "Oh, shit. Relle, if you can hear me, I need you to be  _very quiet_  for a while. You're going to be okay." 

Avery tore off the suit's right glove then and pulled the fake CD case out. With one hand supporting it underneath and the other curled down over the top, she popped open the latch and sucked in a sharp breath. A white flash of silent light that would have blinded her if not for the tint of the suit's visor sparked and went out, and Relle was gone. Avery snapped the case closed and stuffed it back inside her suit, tucking it in the waistband of her pants where her shirt and lab coat would disguise its edges. 

Her heart rate was reaching new speeds in her ears, threatening to drown out the rest of the world. She grimaced as she stood and began the miles-long trek out of the cell block. 'Gotta remember to go slow. Look confident. Pretend you have every right in the world to be doing what you're doing.' 

No one spared her a second glance as she left and rejoined the rest of the facility, nor did anyone ask her where she had been when she reemerged from the dressing room where she had borrowed the hazmat suit in the first place. The case, as light as it was, felt like it weighed a ton as it pressed up against the small of her back. 'Please, please,  _please_ work. Oh, god, I can't believe this is really happening. I'm stealing  _Relle Phantom_  from a top-secret government facility.' 

This wasn't over yet, though. There was one more step in her plan that she needed to complete, and it was going to bespectacular.

~

Back in Hangar C, Avery Rheasson bit back the wave of bile threatening to rise up in her throat. Dr. Soren, as well as an entourage of other scientists and mechanics, stood back far behind a line of white tape on the concrete floor and waited with bated breath for a show they weren't going to get. 

"Ladies and gentlemen, I am beyond pleased to say that I believe this portal is now operational," Rheasson announced to her audience. She held a wireless remote in her hand, and a streak of motor oil had been swiped across her cheek. With her hair teased up to stunningly frizzy heights before getting wrangled into a high ponytail, she looked just right to play the part of a cliché failed scientist. "Dr. Soren, with your permission?"

"Proceed," he allowed with a flippant wave of his hand.

She turned to face the portal and, with far more extravagance than necessary, called out, "Here. We. Go!" while flipping the switch forward. At first, only a faint hum rang through the echoing space of the spacious hangar, but that vibration began to pick up speed and intensity. The canisters of energy strapped to the sides of the portal frame began to glow brighter and brighter, and a lime-green spark flashed in the center of the circular opening. Gasps and low chattering rose up from the crowd, and Dr. Soren smiled in proud approval.

Said smile immediately vanished the second smoke began to billow out of the cracks between the portal's panels, and when Avery took a fearful step back he quickly put two and two together. "Everyone out! Now!" he bellowed. The crowd fled the room in a screeching flock, and Soren shut the doors as soon as Rheasson, the last one to exit the hangar, hurried past him into the hall. It was just in time, too; a tremendous explosion suddenly rocked the foundation under their feet, erupting in bright light and the roar of flame on the other side of the doors. The hallway was a sea of scientists ducking and covering the back of their heads. Light fixtures swung to and fro, eerily casting their shadows in all directions. Avery quickly flipped the switch back off, but it was too late. The damage had been done. 

"I want hazmat suits on everyone now!" Dr. Soren ordered when the dust had settled and the ringing in his ears subsided. "We aren't risking any contamination. No one goes past this door until we get an all-clear." 

He turned to look at Rheasson hunkered down beside him against the wall. Her eyes were wide, her mind racing through what could have possibly made her project fail so impressively. His hand fell heavily on her shoulder, bringing her gaze to his own. "Rheasson, thank you for your contributions, but I don't think you're a good fit for this program. I'm going to need your ID card and badge, please." 

~~

Her escort back to the surface was silent and grim. While she had first arrived with an entourage of huge trucks to carry her supplies and work, this time she was alone. Not much had survived the explosion except for the hangar itself; not even her blueprints had been exempt from the fire.  _Apparently_ , Relle Phantom's core energy was not so easily contained by normal means. 

The guards riding in their carts flanked her pickup truck all the way to the last checkpoint, where she went through the final stage of security by receiving an official pat-down and full-body scan to confirm that she wasn't carrying any contraband. Having received this same treatment on her way in, she knew to expect this and had gotten lucky once again. 'It's gotta run out sometime, right?' 

All of her CDs, mostly gifts from her father who hadn't yet grasped how irrelevant CDs were in the modern day, had been scattered across the passenger seat and floor space. All it had taken to disguise her 'contraband' was to slip the album artwork out of one such case and, with a few pieces of double-sided tape, attach it to the front and back of the container before tossing it among the other squares of plastic. The agent that scoured the cabin of her truck raised a judgmental eyebrow at her slovenliness but said nothing when she was done with her examination. 

Under the light of millions of twinkling stars, Avery Rheasson emerged into the real world again and drove on, following a wide dirt road back toward Bailey Lake's outskirts. It was only when a dark tunnel began to close around the edges of her vision that she remembered to breathe, and breath she did in a near-shriek of a gasp. 

"Oh my god!" she screamed, bending over her steering wheel without taking her eyes off the unlit road. "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my  _fucking god!_ "

She was in the clear! She had done it! Relle Phantom was free! 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy mama-- hallelujah! Man, is your heart racing, too? Mine definitely is. 
> 
> As always, I love your comments to death! Please share them with me! <3


	9. Seeing Clearly

Avery's hands, clenched into claws around the steering wheel, shook from the force as she jostled over the railroad tracks and pulled up alongside a nondescript, abandoned storehouse. The clock on her dashboard read that it was well past midnight, as evidenced by the mellow sounds of the distant city and the seven moons high in the star-strewn sky. She scrambled to find the right 'CD' among all the others and hurried out of her truck, barely remembering to lock it from a distance before she ran into the warehouse. She and Saoirse had broken the locks on the doors hours ago, so she had no trouble wrenching open the handle and shouldering her way inside. A screech of rusty metal sliding against itself announced her arrival in an echo that swelled to fill every inch of the huge, empty building.

"Saoirse, are you in here?" Avery called out breathlessly, her eyes alight with an exhilaration she only rarely felt. "Hello?" 

A shuffling in the darkness was followed by a switch being flicked on, and the far corner of the warehouse flooded with a yellow-stained light a split second later. Saoirse looked exhausted, like she hadn't slept a wink for a full two days. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her entire posture seemed to sag as if gravity had increased on her alone. Her hijab was crooked, draping haphazardly over her hair and failing to contain a few wavy strands that fell into her eyes. One of the tables from Avery's personal lab had been brought over and a medical kit rested atop it, as had Saoirse's head while she must have dozed. "Avery?" Saoirse gasped, shakily rushing over to greet her friend. "I thought you were never going to come back! Did you-- Wha-- Wh-Where is she?"

Avery seized the crestfallen girl's wrist and yanked her over to the table, where she then set the slim transport case down. It still wore its musical disguise-- an old heavy metal group called The Dead And Restless had graciously given up their cover art for the cause. With a colorless flash and the sound of a seal cracking open, Avery released her precious cargo onto the table. Both stepped back and blinked rapidly to clear the spots from their eyes, but once Saoirse's vision returned it was immediately invaded with tears of joy, relief, dread, and anguish. 

"Camry!" she cried out, launching herself to her girlfriend's side and taking her head in between both hands. "Cam, oh no-- babe, open your eyes!"

Relle did not. She could only curl in on herself with her palms clapped over her ears and a pained expression on her flushed face. Blood dribbled from both nostrils, and more of the same bright green droplets streaked down her forearms from her ears. 

"She's severely dehydrated," Avery announced gravely as she came around the other side of the table. "I need to get this thing off of her-- what do you have to drink?"

The two worked in harmony with one another, Saoirse taking up the task of coaxing her silent girlfriend into drinking something while Avery grabbed tools from her truck to pop the latch on the cuff around Relle's wrist. Whether it had a tracker in it or not remained to be seen, and it was a risk she wasn't willing to take. Relle didn't so much as flinch when the mouth of the water bottle pressed against her lips, but when the first drops spread over her cracked tongue and soothed her throat, her sphalerite eyes flashed open with a startling urgency. Glazed over with fever and unfocused, her pupils dilated enormously under the dim lighting. 

"Cam, it's me. It's Saoirse. You're safe now," Saoirse said to her, holding her close with one arm while the other supported the room-temperature water bottle. The water seemed to clear her head a little bit, and she reached up to weakly grasp the bottle herself over Saoirse's much steadier hand. 

When Avery returned with the tools, she wasted no time tinkering and got right to work unlocking it however she could. The release mechanism required two hands to undo, she discovered quickly, as she had to both press on two spots on the bracelet and insert a thin wire into a tiny hole in the top. The inhibitor swung open with barely a sound before dropping off of Relle's wrist altogether, where it lay on the dirt-swathed floor like an abandoned scrap of junk. 

The change was almost too instantaneous for Avery to retreat in time: Relle sucked in a huge breath and crumpled onto the table, her back arching and her mouth falling open in a silent scream. A torrent of hot orange flame rose from her entire body, twisting and twirling upward with the stunning grace of a professional ballerina's dancing. Lava bubbled in the back of her throat, and she flipped over to cough it out onto the floor. The edges of the gooey puddles caught everything they touched on fire; an overpowering smell of burning dust rose up in the air to mingle with the smoke and ash erupting from everywhere at once. 

Avery had backpedaled in time to avoid getting seared by the volcanic heat, but Saoirse had refused to let go and instead stubbornly clung to Camry that much tighter, drawing the smaller girl's back into her chest. How... How was she not  _melting_ right then and there? 

"I'm here," Saoirse whispered. The tears that streaked down her cheeks hissed and popped as they cooked like drops of water on a hot skillet, but the scalding danger didn't even register as a blip on her radar. "I'm here, Cam." 

Cam heaved and choked on the magma, her gloved fingers scorching dents into the weak plastic and metal of the collapsible table. Without even a peep of warning, the entire thing buckled under the raging inferno and came crashing to the dirty floor, bringing both girls down with it. Relle Phantom clung to the steady arms surrounding her as she struggled to breathe, and slowly,  _painfully_ slowly, the flow of lava subsided. The sparks flinging themselves up to the rafters cooled into ash and gently drifted back down like a hot snowstorm. As the raging fires died away around the two teens, the light in the warehouse also faded back to just the weak lightbulb dangling overhead. 

A ring of orange-white light flared up around Relle's body and traveled in two opposite directions, shifting her appearance from the superhero the city knew and loved to that of an ordinary sixteen-year-old girl with blonde hair and an ashen complexion. Saoirse coughed out a lungful of caustic smoke and rose to her feet, dragging Camry up to take her away from the veritable pond of lava covering the floor. The water bottle was long gone, evaporated into steam instantly, but she had packed multiple just in case. 

Not unlike a startled animal, Avery crept around the hellish site and slowly approached where Saoirse had pulled Camry toward the shadows. A bag full of snacks lay in wait beyond the ring cast down by the overhead light. What luck she had had in setting it down further off! "H-How are you not  _dead?_ " Avery shrieked, breaking the silence that had fallen over the three of them. Behind her, the last remains of the table bubbled and smoked in the puddle of melted plastic and lava. Her stunned face was coated in a sheen of slick sweat, and small drops were beginning to form on her neck and forehead. She wiped at them with the back of one hand and flicked them off into the darkness. 

Saoirse shook a flurry of ash off the top of her hijab and eased Camry down onto the cooler floor, where she still fought to catch her breath. She had had magma upheavals pretty regularly since becoming Relle Phantom, but this one had been on an entirely new scale on intensity. "Cam would never hurt me, not even by accident," Saoirse explained in a raspy chainsmoker's voice. "I--  _ahem_ , ugh, wow-- I don't think her powers can burn me. This isn't the first time something like this has happened." 

Just like in the clearing by the coven stronghold two months ago, the lush grass had ignited around and under them, but Saoirse hadn't felt a single thing. Not even her clothes had suffered from the contact with the flames, and that was still true to this moment. The only thing that had changed about her outfit now was that cooling lava clung to her knees and shins, filling the folds of her jeans and weighing down her steps with the forming rock. The seal on a new water bottle split open between her piano-player's fingers, and Saoirse held it up to Camry's lips without a second to lose. 

She greedily gulped it down and screwed her iolite eyes shut. The breaths coming in and out of her nose were harsh and fast, still tainted with smoke and bits of ash despite being present in her human form. If she had had the water to spare within her, tears would have been streaming down her cheeks like twin rivers flooding. 

"Should she go to a hospital?" Avery wondered, stepping forward a little more and sitting down on her haunches to watch. "She was seriously neglected in there." 

"I don't know," Saoirse answered softly as she wrenched the cap off another bottle and helped Camry hold it. "I just-- I don't know. If we risk her getting captured again..." 

Neither of them wanted to entertain the idea, and it was quickly shoved from their minds in sync. As Avery used her fingers to snuff out the smoking ends of her hair, she kept a keen eye trained on the gasping half-ghost reclined in front of her. 'Her disguise really is impeccable...' she thought appreciatively, nodding to no one in particular. 'I never would have thought she's Relle just by looking at her.'

"Not too much water, or she'll get sick," Avery warned Saoirse after a minute, and the younger girl drew the bottle away. Camry groaned low in her throat at losing it, but by how she clenched her midriff it seemed to have been the right decision. "We shouldn't stay here, either. If there's anything like a tracker in that inhibitor cuff, that task force could be on us in minutes."

"Okay," Saoirse agreed, her voice somehow still soft despite its gravel, without taking her eyes off of Camry. The blonde was blinking a lot, struggling to comprehend everything around her at once. "Cam, we're gonna have to get up and move somewhere safer, okay? C'mon, stand up."

Saoirse took one side and Avery took the other; together, they more or less carried the listless girl between them out to the pickup truck and eased her into the cramped back seat. Camry had yet to say a word since her release, but by the time the three of them were bumping down the country back roads toward Bailey Lake's suburban area, smaller noises were finding their way out of her throat. Keeping the air conditioning cranked down as low as possible and blasting on high seemed to do her a world of good, too, as it helped to bring down the flush in her cheeks. Saoirse pivoted in the passenger seat to keep a hand and eye on her girlfriend, so she saw the exact moment when Camry suddenly faded from consciousness and then blinked awake again. Her iolite eyes were clear, no longer clouded by fever, and she shot up into a sitting position.

"Wh-Wh-What the--?" she stammered, then paused when she looked down and saw the hand holding one of her own. Her gaze followed the connection up a wrist, an arm, a shoulder, and finally to Saoirse's beaming, exhausted face. "S-Seersh?"

"Hey," Saoirse said, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. "You're not in there anymore, Cam. You're safe, I promise." 

"Oh my god," Camry whispered. Her expression was a cacophony of raw, unfiltered emotion. She couldn't cry-- every part of her body felt tender and shriveled up, like a piece of overcooked jerky, and that included her tear ducts-- but she weakly clung to Saoirse's hand with a surge of desperation and relief as she lay down again. "Oh, god, Seersh..." 

"Hey, I need you to tell me where I'm going," Avery spoke up. Her knuckles were bone-white in their grip on the steering wheel. "I don't actually know this area very well." 

Saoirse kept her hand in the backseat while she turned around to give directions. "Turn left up here. Take a right at the next light-- no, no, the  _next_ light, sorry! Keep going forward... and... left again. Stop up there in the driveway with the crooked mailbox."

Her mentioning the crooked mailbox piqued Camry's utterly drained interest-- only a handful of weeks ago, she had accidentally crashed into it while trying to practice her teleportation in the middle of the night, and try as she did to repair the damage, it wouldn't remain quite as upright as it once had. Still, the prospect of actually being home again couldn't outweigh the fact that she had literally not slept a wink in over three days, so when Saoirse and Avery got out of the truck to help her back onto her feet, the weight of her own torso caused her knees to buckle underneath her. Only the two women's combined strength kept her from faceplanting into the asphalt of her own driveway.

"Oof--!" Saoirse gasped, readjusting her grip on Camry's middle before slinging a limp arm over her shoulder. "Urgh-- I-I don't got her-- No, I got her. Okay, let's get her inside." 

The front door was, to their surprise, unlocked, and after kicking it shut behind them they walked further inside to see that the kitchen light was still on. Mason Dowell was asleep in an armchair, a cell phone loosely in the hand that dangled over the side. The TV played the last few seconds of a commercial for toilet paper before switching back to the news. Of course, he was predictably waiting to find out anything new regarding the arrest of Relle Phantom. 

Avery and Saoirse walked Camry over to a couch and gently helped her down. She was one hundred and ten percent out even before her head could rest on one of the throw pillows. Maybe the familiar smells and sights of home had helped in soothing her anxiety to the point where she actually could sleep-- or, maybe her exhaustion was just too great to ignore any longer. Speaking of exhaustion, as soon as Camry was safely lying down and breathing evenly, Saoirse hurried into the kitchen to see why the light was on. Sadie sat on a chair at the center island and snored softly, one hand on a spoon that dipped into a bowl of... some sort of mysterious "food" concoction. 'Right, she "experimented" a lot when Cam went missing the first time around' Saoirse recalled.

She pried the wooden spoon from Sadie's hand and pushed everything to the side before shaking the blonde woman's shoulder. "Sadie, wake up. Sadie? It's me, Saoirse." 

Sadie Dowell awoke with a startled snort and lifted her head slowly, blinking sleep from her watermelon tourmaline eyes. The impression left by the edge of the cutting board pressing into her cheek was bright red and all too obvious against her pale skin. "Mmmwuh-- Wha--? Saoirse? Wh... What're you doing here?" She sucked in a deeper breath and glanced over at the display on the oven. "Is it-- Is it two in the morning or two at night?"

Never mind that those were technically the same thing. "Sadie, we got Camry back. She's sleeping in the living room right now, but she's okay."

Saoirse searched her eyes for a hint of understanding or recognition, but at first it didn't appear. She repeated herself just to be sure, which finally did the trick. Sadie grabbed Saoirse by the arms and exclaimed in a rusty voice, "She's here?  _She's okay?_ " 

~~

When Camry blinked awake the next morning, she certainly did not expect to see sunlight streaming through the open blinds of her family's living room. What's more, when she shifted around a little bit, she realized that there were curiously comforting weights pressing her down by her hands and forehead. It was so warm... 

Reality began to clarify, and with it came the sight of her mother and father sleeping at odd angles beside her. Sadie, seated on the arm of the couch and draped toward her daugher, had fallen asleep while stroking her bangs out of her eyes, and Mason held her hand as he slept sitting down on the floor. Across the room, Saoirse snoozed while sitting up and leaning sideways against a total stranger-- or, maybe she wasn't a  _total_ stranger? Something about her curly, red-brown ponytail and tall physique struck a faint chord in Cam's distant memory. 

It was hard to tell what time it was, but the intensity of the sunlight hinted at no later than mid-morning. Footsteps, quiet and carefully measured, padded down the hallway and veered off into the kitchen. Someone else was in the house? 'Oh, right-- Ari's here, of course' Camry remembered. Wow, her head really did hurt... and her throat was so dry. Had her lips ever been this chapped before? She felt like she hadn't eaten in  _days_... 

She shifted again, pressing weight into her father's hand in the process, and watched as he lifted his head off the corner of the couch cushion. He gave her a soft smile then and reached out to stroke her cheek once. "Morning, Cammie." 

"Morning, Daddy," she whispered back, though if the room hadn't already been so silent he would have had an awfully hard time hearing her. "I'm really sorry I worried you..." 

"Well, you definitely did, but it's not like that was your fault." Mason sat up and stretched, noisily cracking his back with a groan, before going into the kitchen. Camry heard him greet Ariadna quietly. Then, cupboards opened and the water filter in the refrigerator hummed to life. He returned with a full glass in hand and Ari, who curled up in his armchair with a mug of coffee and little hesitation. After she managed to sit up enough to drink, Camry accepted the glass and chugged it all down with an urgency that startled even herself. 

"Slow down a little," Mason whispered, taking the empty glass back. "You'll make yourself sick, honey. Want something to eat?" 

" _Everything_ ," Camry groaned in answer. " _Please_." 

~

It only took a little while after that for the rest of the ragtag household to wake up. While Sadie held onto Camry as she had only done when her daughter had been very small, Camry chowed down on as much plain food as her stomach could manage. Three days without eating, even in ghost form, had predictably caused her stomach to shrink and her appetite to skyrocket. Saoirse and Avery eventually were roused by the commotion, and more relieved hugs made their rounds. 

"I guess I was too tired to really ask the right questions, but who are you?" Sadie asked the tall, exhausted twenty-five-year-old seated across the coffee table. "And how did you manage to get Camry out of... wherever she was?"

Avery grinned around the bags under her eyes and nodded over to Saoirse, who snacked on a bowl of dry cereal while trying to keep her eyes open. "It was a team effort, to say the least. I never would've been able to do what I needed to without Saoirse's help." 

Said teen raised a fist up and out, and Avery met it nonchalantly before they each exploded it backwards. "But my name is Avery Rheasson. I'm... kind of a scientist whose interest is mainly in paranormal studies. I was trying to build a portal like the one under the lake, although... that definitely blew up in my face." She chuckled to herself weakly, as if laughing at an inside joke that no one else was privy to. 

"We saw her on the beach when we snuck out a few nights ago, Cam." Saoirse tried to sit up a little bit straighter and ended up slouching against an embroidered throw pillow instead. "Ugh... I can feel my  _eyeballs_ , I'm so tired."

"... Going to pretend I didn't hear that," Sadie murmured in sync with a glance between the two teens. "Well, Avery, we really can't thank you enough for getting Camry back home safe." 

"As terrifying as it was, I definitely am glad I got to be the one to do it," Avery said.

Cam held her half-full water glass between both hands and gazed directly into the woman's face when she spoke up. "I don't really remember every part of what happened to me, but I definitely remember seeing you in there. That was you in the suit, then, wasn't it?" 

"Yeah, that was me," she said with a half-hearted smile. "Boy, it was not easy to sneak you out of there. Their security protocols do not mess around."

Something about her posture shifted then, adopting a more serious air as Avery squared her shoulders and looked each and every one of the Dowells right in the eye. "With that being said, I have to know: what's your exit strategy?"

"Exit strategy?" Sadie echoed, her brows pulling together in confusion. Mason, who casually sank into the cushion next to his wife, let his gaze dart between Avery and his daughter. "What are you talking about?"

"As we speak, all across the city, the government is installing special sensors that can pick up on a ghost's nether signature. Their task force is able to mobilize in minutes, and they're restricting access to the lake to try and quarantine the portal; they might even try to close it if they can figure out how, exactly." Avery leaned forward a bit and laced her hands together, resting them both on her knee. "As effective a disguise as your human half is, Relle, they have your nether signature on file. I don't think your outward appearance is going to be enough to keep them from finding you again." 

Camry tried not to flinch and failed as her mother's fearful hand rested on her shoulder. "And there really isn't any way we can talk to them? To make them realize I'm not a threat?"

What little hope blooming in her eyes died when Avery shook her head. "Not since their curiosity was piqued by studying you. And that was just the non-invasive preliminary studies, too. Your fire core really got their attention, and if I know Dr. Soren as well as I do, then he won't stop until he's got every last one of your secrets in his hands."

"They wouldn't be able to do stuff like this to her if they knew she was human, right?" Mason wondered aloud.

"The mandates specifically say 'ectoplasmic entity,' so they can probably stretch that definition to include half-ghosts," Saoirse pointed out gravely. Her hand rested on the edge of the bowl, her fingers dipping into the cereal but no longer bringing it to her mouth. 

"And revealing my secret identity to the public wouldn't be a good idea, even  _if_ it would keep the government from taking me again," Camry added. She sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly, exhaling the faintest whiff of a burning campfire. "So, are you saying I need to leave the country, Avery? Or just to get out of town for a while?"

"Leaving the country would be your safest option," the scientist hypothesized. "It'd be outside of the government's jurisdiction, and you wouldn't have to watch your back for task forces like the one in this city."

"Hang on, hang on," Sadie interrupted quickly, rising to her feet and picking up her mug of coffee resting on the table. "We can't just pick up and leave the  _country_  on the spot! We have jobs-- and lives here!"

"It's perfect!" Camry exclaimed suddenly as she launched to her feet as well only to fall back onto the couch when a wave of dizziness swept over her. "Oh, ow, head rush. No, no, no, this is perfect! We can kill two birds with one stone!" 

Saoirse's eyes slowly lit up as the same realization dawned on her. "You're right! Mexico!"

"Mexico!" 

"Mexico?" Sadie and Mason asked in unison, exchanging confused glances.

Up until that point, Ariadna had remained entirely silent; not exactly happy to be reduced to a simple onlooker, she drained her coffee and tried to follow the conversation as best she could by only reading lips from their profiles. Seeing the name of the country she had been born in, however, immediately brought her back into the circle. "Are we going to Mexico?" she asked, startling everyone as their gazes shot to her.

Camry positively beamed; even with her sunken, bruised eyes and inability to stand up for more than a second, her newfound confidence shined forth from every inch of her being. "Hell yeah we are, Ari." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, we can see them start to catch up to Dude and Marina! Man, I was so excited to write this beginning part, but that excitement pales in comparison to how excited I am to write the next ones! 
> 
> As always, I adore your comments and kudos. Please call upon the giving spirit in your heart and share your thoughts down below!


	10. Concealed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BOY I am not a fan of writing transition periods. I just wanna get to the action, you know? But this still has to happen, so here we are. With that being said, this is still a good chapter imho. Enjoy!

The plan, as simple as it was in theory, was definitely going to take some careful execution if it would have any possibility of success. Camry, as weak as she still was after her three-day fast from both food and water, was bedridden for most of the same day she had returned. Even so, her mind was made up, as was Ariadna's, so they got to work packing for their trip down south. Sadie and Mason tried to talk the two of them out of it as best they could, but as humans they were basically attempting the equivalent of talking an avalance into screeching to a halt.

"You've never gone to Mexico before-- you don't even speak any Spanish," Mason argued as he watched Camry stoically snack on crackers and deli meat. "And Mexico isn't exactly a small country, either. Do you even know where to start looking for them?"  

"I can sense witches in the general area," Camry rebutted as she held a hand over her mouth to catch any falling crumbs. "And maybe Ari will have some sort of spell to help narrow down the search."

"You can't just run off to another country on a 'maybe,'" he groaned, bowing his head into his hands in exasperation. "This is so dangerous. You're both only sixteen! I can't just watch you two go alone. Maybe I should come with you--"

"You've got a trip coming up, Dad," she said quickly. "We don't know how long we'll be gone, anyway. You can't miss this."

"I can miss it if I have to. Don't worry about that."

Sadie, positioned by the front door after seeing Avery off, folded her arms and stalked over to the couch. "How are you two going to make this work, huh? Just run across the border without your passports or anything? Figure it out along the way?" By her unamused stare, she wasn't expecting to hear a very good plan come out of her daughter. 

"Mom, look, I..." Camry trailed off, twiddling her thumbs in her lap before the right words found her again. "I  _have_ to do this, okay? We don't have much of a plan yet, but that doesn't mean we won't have one eventually. Besides, I couldn't stand to just go into hiding and not do anything useful while I'm at it."

Sadie sucked in a deep breath and let it out in a rush while pinching the bridge of her nose. "Alright, alright.  _Alright_. God, I must be the worst mother in the world to let this happen..." 

"Sadie," Mason started to say, but she pressed her hand into his shoulder and shook her head. 

"Let's just... think of it as a study abroad trip. A summer excursion. We both know we can't stop her or Ari from going, even if we tried." Sadie leveled a serious glare at her incredulous daughter's face. "Tell us  _every part_  of what you're planning. And we're both getting a daily update of where you are and what you're up to. I'm not going to just sit back and worry about what's happening to you like we have the last few days." 

Camry threw her arms out toward her mother for a hug and beamed up at her. "Thank you, Momma. I knew you'd get it." 

From around the corner of the stairs, Saoirse peeked her head out to look at the small family gathered together. "Cam, talk to me. How heavy or light are you packing? What's the strategy?"

"Here, lemme get up there," Camry answered while rising. She leaned heavily on her mother's arm until she reached Saoirse, who took over as her main support up the stairs. "Thanks. Okay, we're gonna need to be able to stuff everything we have into one backpack each. I don't think we would want to be weighed down by multiple bags..."

The rest of the day passed by in a similar fashion as her parents made checklists and ran out to buy essentials for the two would-be travelers. They packed cooler clothes for the warmer Mexican weather and made sure that their shoes were sturdy enough to survive a  _lot_ of walking. Neither girl knew exactly where they were going, but witches tended to hide off the beaten path, in a manner of speaking. There was no guarantee that there would be transportation wherever they ended up.

Afternoon rolled around, and by then Camry could walk on her own again. Standing in the doorway to the guest room, she paused and watched Ariadna take stock of her meager inventory. Even with the freshly bought clothes and various necessities, her pack looked a lot lighter than Cam's did. 

Ari glanced over her shoulder and did a double take when she saw who stood in the door. "Oh, hi," she said with a soft smile.

"Hi," Camry answered, signing it in sync. "Uhm... Do you have everything you need?"

Ari shrugged her shoulders noncommitally. "I think so. I don't really know what I should bring, though. I've never exactly done something like this before."

"I think we'll be okay," Camry said. "I mean, anyone who would dare pick a fight with me won't win. And I have some money to buy any other stuff we may need." 

Ari paused for a moment to process her lip reading and then frowned. "No, that's... not really what has me worried. I know you can keep us both safe."

"... What's on your mind, then?" Even though a good chunk of her strength had returned, Camry suppressed the urge to wince at a soreness in her legs after standing in one place for this long. She moved further into the room and sank down on the edge of the guest bed, facing toward Ari so they could talk. In all honesty, before this entire fiasco had hit them like a speeding trainwreck, neither girl had spoken much to one another, so it felt a little bit strange to talk this much. 

They were going to have to get used to that in the next few days.

Ari folded her arms over her chest and stared down at her sneakers for a tense minute. Then, after taking a deep breath, she looked back up an set her jaw. "I have no idea how we're going to find them. At all. I don't know that many spells."

"For real?" Camry gasped. "But... What can we do, then? Can you learn one that'll help us?" 

"Maybe," Ari fidgeted awkwardly, chewing her lip. "I don't know who would teach me, though. My magic is in time."

Camry was back on her feet and fighting the urge to pace. "Okay, okay... Okay. Well... We shouldn't run down there without knowing how to even start looking. H-How did you learn the spells you  _do_ know?"  

Ari's gaze flickered toward the window, which was open an inch to let a warm breeze filter in. The sun was in view and cast a shaft of light onto the carpet. "I listened to the moons..."

"... Uh. What?" 

She launched into a scattered explanation then, detailing how she could hear the stories the seven moons had to tell. Reaching back through time, she could access what happened in the past under the moonslight. When witches performed spells or rituals beneath the moons, she could hear their chants and sometimes see what materials they used to conjure their magic. Of course, not many witches used locating spells in the middle of the night, so Ari's knowledge in that department was sorely lacking. 

When she finished, Camry nodded slowly, her eyes a little unfocused as her mind wandered. "Okay, I think I get it. So... is there a way you can search for a specific spell to listen to?" Ariadna shook her head, regrettably. "Dammit. Okay. Have you tried listening to other stuff? Like, uh... the sun? Or trees? I don't know-- I'm sorry if that sounds stupid."

She received another head shake. "I can't handle hearing things in the daytime. It's too loud, and it hurts to listen to so much noise. The  _sun_... No, that's too dangerous."

They lapsed into silence as they contemplated what they could do. This was a crucial key toward taking their first step into this mission, and they had already been cost a lot of time with Camry's arrest. There was no doubt that Dude and Maria had already arrived at... wherever they were going. 

Suddenly, Ariadna turned on her heel and marched up to the window. She lifted the sash higher with both hands and leaned out to squint up at the summertime sky. The pale blue expanse was marked with scattered white clouds and the occasional flock of birds, but it was otherwise empty. Her pensive frown deepened, and she looked back over her shoulder at Camry. 

"I was pretty little the last time I tried to listen to the sun. Maybe... Maybe if I wait until a cloud covers some of it?" 

"Are you sure?" the blonde girl asked. Her hands pressed together against her sternum, denoting her unease. "I don't want you to get hurt, Ari."

"Just... stay close to me, please," Ariadna said softly. When Camry was at her side and resting a hand on her shoulder, Ari turned her attention back to the sun and let her white opal eyes flutter shut. With more hesitation than usual, she reached with her mind for that barrier and pushed past it with the equivalent of dipping her toe into a pool.

The cacophony of sound that immediately slammed into her ears caused her knees to buckle; if not for the windowsill and Camry's quick-thinking support under both arms, she would have crumpled like a discarded pile of dirty laundry. She jerked out of the sun's story and spiraled back into herself with enough speed to give her mental whiplash; it left her dizzy and reeling backwards into Camry's chest. 

"Ari?" Camry yelped as she stumbled under the unexpected weight. "What happened?  _Ari?_ "

Her eyes were still closed, so she couldn't read the other girl's lips. "So...  _oww_. Oh, god..." 

"C'mon, c'mon," Cam mumbled, dragging Ari back over to the bed and easing her down onto it. She flopped back instantly, making her dark brown hair fan out around her spinning head. 

"The moons are always so much quieter," Ariadna murmured after a few moments of tense silence. "I can stand to listen to them without worrying about it. The sun is too... energetic. And noisy. My ears are ringing, I think."

Cam sufficed to pat the other girl's arm a couple of times and let the contact linger for a few seconds. She wanted to say so much, but it could wait until Ari opened her eyes again. 'Dammit... What are we going to do now? We have to get our hands on a spell  _pronto_.' 

~~

The sun was already setting when Avery pulled into the Dowell driveway in a hurry. She was in such a rush to get out of her truck that she almost forgot to park it altogether. "Don't leave yet, don't leave yet!" she yelled while throwing open her door and slamming it shut with more force than necessary. On the front porch, Camry had just been about to close the front door after admitting Saoirse inside. She paused and raised a pair of surprised eyebrows at the newcomer. 

"Wha-- Avery? What's going on?" she asked. For her answer, all she received was Avery grabbing her arm and dragging her inside, where they were safe from prying ears and eyes. Saoirse stared between the two of them from a few paces away but said nothing.

The scientist was out of breath, her ponytail haggard from the wind and a lack of attention. She had a thick bracelet in one hand and Camry's upper arm in the other. "Look at what I managed to do!" she exclaimed as she held up the item. 

Camry squinted at the piece of jewelry for all of two seconds before she sucked in a hissing breath and jerked back, wrenching out of Avery's grip. Her hands shot behind her back to hide. "What the hell are you  _doing_ with that?" she shrieked. The stunned look of betrayal on her face only lasted for a moment, however, after Avery began to explain herself. 

"No, no, no, listen," the scientist said quickly, waving her free hand back and forth to dispel the younger girl's worries. "I went back to the warehouse this afternoon to make sure that we didn't leave behind any traces of our identities and I found this. It didn't melt! So I chipped it out of the lava rock it was embedded in and started tinkering around with it a little."

"What if there's a tracker in it?" Camry yelped. "You could've led the task force here!"

Saoirse's thoughtful frown deepened. That had been one of Avery's concerns only a few hours ago, hadn't it? This didn't seem wise.

"No, no,  _listen_. The task force would've already gotten there to look for you by then, so I don't think they thought to put a tracker inside this one. I heard it was made specifically for your nether-signature, so maybe they forgot about that part when they were making it. I double-checked it, too. No trackers in here." 

When Camry's metaphorical hackles settled back down, Avery continued as she had before. "Anyway, I messed around with the mechanisms and used some samples of your signature to tweak how much energy production it blocks. I think if you wear this, it should completely hide your signature from everyone, even the sensors around the city."

"Wait, you mean she'd be safe in Bailey Lake?" Saoirse asked, stepping closer to her girlfriend's side. Camry automatically reached for her hand and grasped it loosely, just barely entwining their fingers. 

"I mean, that, yes, but I was thinking more about the witches you're looking for," Avery replied. She held it out to Camry, who gingerly took it between her index and thumb like it was a piece of disgusting trash. Suffice to say, she hesitated to touch it any more than that. "You can keep your superpowers secret, probably even if they can sense ghosts somehow." 

"Oh," she whispered. With the cuff resting firmly in her palm, she tested its weight and tried not to cringe at the memories it dredged up. "Okay, I see what you're saying, but... I couldn't take it off by myself, no matter what I tried. How'm I gonna ever use my powers if I can't access them on my own?"

"I already thought of that, actually," Avery answered brightly. To demonstrate, she took back the cuff and slapped it on her own wrist, locking it into place. It was only just barely big enough to fit, though her skin was pinched in its too-small circumference. She used her thumb, index, and middle finger to press down on the two raised bumps at the same time, and the cuff snapped open immediately. "See? Now you only need one hand to make it work." 

"... Huh," Cam murmured. By then, her expression had lost its trepidation and replaced it with curiosity. "Wow, that... Thank you, Avery. I think this really will come in handy." 

She turned to Saoirse and nudged her arm. "So, think this deserves a test run?" Saoirse visibly wilted at the suggestion and seemed to crumple under resignation. "We were going over there anyway. This might actually give us a chance to steal something without getting caught."

Avery narrowed her eyes at that. "Wait, what are you  _stealing?_ " 

Saoirse quietly growled deep in the back of her throat for a total of four seconds before answering. "We have to look for a spell book that Ari can use to find her brother and mom. The only people in this city who have something like that are in the coven on the outskirts of town. We're going over there tonight,  _even though_  they almost succeeded in killing Camry two months ago, and I have to show them the way there because I'm the only one who knows where they are." 

"I would've gone by myself, but I was unconscious the whole way there," Camry piped up. Her cheeriness was obviously feigned in order to mask her anxiety about the entire ordeal. "And I didn't see where it was after we teleported to safety.

"But!" she continued. "A plane to Texas is taking off from the airport in about two hours, and Ari and I will be on it, with or without a spell book. We're gonna time it just right so that we jump on it before the witches catch up to us."

"So, this 'test run' is going to see if witches really can sense your signature while you're wearing the inhibitor," Avery concluded with a nod and a hand on her chin. "Alright, I like it. I'm glad I managed to catch you before you left."

Camry tried the cuff on for Avery to assess the reaction she had to it, and despite suddenly feeling a lot colder inside and a little bit short of breath, nothing else happened. On that note, Avery declared the experiment a success and left soon after with the promise that she would continue studying the effects Relle's core had on Camry's human half. The thought of being studied any more, despite Avery's reassurances that it would never be invasive or anything but totally consensual, left Camry with chills that couldn't entirely be attributed to the inhibitor.

Then she was gone, and Saoirse and Camry were left in the foyer. They turned toward one another and paused, absorbing the solitude. "Are you really sure about this?" Saoirse asked for the hundredth time that day. "I can't...  I don't think I could stand to see you going anywhere near Kordelle again after what he tried to do to you-- after what he  _did_ do to you." As if on cue, a dull ache bloomed in the joint of her barely-healed right elbow, and she winced. 

Camry's hand was on Saoirse's elbow in an instant, applying a gentle warmth to soothe the pain. It radiated through the mended tissues with ease, banishing the twinge almost as quickly as it had appeared. "Look, Seersh, this is the only way I can see us finding Dude at this point. If we don't go soon, we could lose his trail... or something. God, there may not even  _be_ a trail at this point."

Saoirse pulled her lower lip in between her teeth for a moment and gently bit down on it, worrying it as she mulled over what to say. "I... I know, Cam, I know. I want him back just as much as you do. Maybe even more. But that's not the point--" 

"Wait, what was that?" Cam interrupted her suddenly. "What do you mean by 'maybe even more?'" 

Saoirse's lips snapped shut immediately, and her pink tourmaline gaze darted to empty space somewhere next to Camry's feet. "Seersh? Uh, what's going on?" the blonde pressed hesitantly. Her ministrations on Saoirse's elbow had long since ceased but the contact between them remained; now, she pulled away a bit and let her hand hang by her side. 

"I... Oh,  _c'mon_ , I wasn't gonna tell you this right before you left to go find him," Saoirse groaned. She let her head fall forward into both of her palms and stayed that way-- out of shame? What in the world was she talking about? 

"Seersh, I don't wanna pressure you or anything, but you're really starting to freak me out," Camry murmured. "What're you talking about?"

Saoirse tried to start her sentence four or five times before she could actually continue for more than a few words. "No, it's-- I mean, I just-- No, no, Cam, I'm not--  _Uuugh!_  Come  _on_ ,  _words! Graaaagh!_

"Alright, you know what? Fine. Cam, I've been meaning to tell you about this for a little while now, but I  _swear_ it's nothing you need to worry about. I just... I didn't want you to think less of me, or like you couldn't trust me. Bisexual people already get a bad enough rep as it is for being 'unfaithful.'" 

"Saoirse, I would never think that of you," Camry said in a soft tone, her heart immediately going out to her girlfriend. How long had she been keeping in this mysterious weight on her chest? "Did... Did I do anything to make you think you couldn't tell me this?"

"No, it's not you at all," Saoirse assured her without hesitation. "This is all me, okay? But... Lately, I feel like I've been getting a little crush on Dude. A  _little_ one." 

Camry froze, going rigid where she stood under the hall light. She said nothing, did nothing, looked at nothing; the seconds ticking by started to itch against Saoirse's nervous skin. "Cam? Honey? You know that this doesn't say anything against our relationship, right?" 

"I... No, yeah," Camry mumbled. One hand, the one that clenched the cuff between two fingers, drifted up to press against her lips. "Yeah, I do. I do."

"So... What are you thinking?" Saoise asked, trying to coax something more elaborate out of her stunned girlfriend. " _Please_ talk to me, Cam. We always tell each other everything, even the stuff we're scared to say." 

"I-I know," she stammered behind her hand. It curled into a fist and fell to her side, gentle but steady. "We do. It's just... I... dunno what to think about that. He's my best friend, too, and I care about him basically as much as I care about you. You've really got a crush on him?"

Saoirse pressed her palms to Camry's cheeks and squished them together gently. "People get crushes all the time, but that doesn't mean I'm ever gonna be unfaithful to you. My feelings for you aren't any less than they've always been. I can promise you that."

The look in her steady eyes was the epitome of genuine, and upon realizing it Camry's shoulders visibly relaxed. She smiled a compressed smile between her squished cheeks and mumbled, "Mmkay." Saoirse let go with a relieved sigh and took a small step back. "Thanks for being honest with me, Seersh."

"Thanks for not getting mad," she answered. Two fingers slipped under her hijab to smooth back a lock of hair that she had felt fall out of place. "Trust me, I've got  _no_ plans to act on this crush. I... wasn't really sure if I should tell you before you left to go find him, though. Will you be alright?" 

Camry sputtered. "It'll be fine! Ari and I will find him and bring him home, no doubt about it."

"Right," Saoirse said with a smile. "Now, let's get you that spell book, onto that plane, and down to Mexico so you can find him."

"Yeah!" 

They were about to exit the foyer together when Saoirse stopped her girlfriend by the shoulder. "Oh, and Cam? It probably doesn't need saying, but please don't tell him I have a crush on him, okay? I wanna sort through my feelings myself, and that would be hard if he also knew. It'd probably freak him out if you told him." 

Camry raised a hand to swear by it. "Not in a million years. Your secret is safe with me, Seersh." As they left the foyer hand in hand, their resolve was set in stone. It was time to commit some grand theft library.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You've gotta know by now that I love to make terrible jokes all the time >:3c 
> 
> I'm sure you've got a lot of questions about what the girls just talked about, so let me say that my inbox is always open and I would be happy to try and clear things up for you without spoiling any major plot-related stuff. I DEFINITELY don't want to try and perpetuate the idea that bisexual people are unfaithful or "can't pick a side," particularly since I think I am also somewhat bi myself, so please don't think I'm trying to say that. 
> 
> I'll flesh out more stuff in subsequent chapters, so if this 'hidden crush' reveal feels sudden or like it's coming from out of the blue, don't worry! Just bear with me and everything will make sense.


	11. Divinity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are you ready?

Their plane was booked and leaving in roughly an hour. With bags packed and being taken to the airport by Sadie and Mason, the three girls were free to travel lightly on their path to the coven stronghold. Twilight was upon them, so the shadows were deep enough to hide within as they made their way down the dirt road that Saoirse had only seen once before. As their guide, she led Ariadna and Camry through the tree line and onto the rarely-beaten path that wound away from the outskirts of Bailey Lake. 

She had to stifle a strangled sound when she saw an all too familiar shoe embedded halfway into the ground. So, this was where she had gotten stuck and Dude had had to pull her free. That meant the barrier that prevented unwanted guests from trespassing was right in front of them. "Stand back a second," she warned them, putting a hand out to block their progress. Cam and Ari hung back and watched intently as Saoirse used the tip of her sneaker to poke at the dusty road. When nothing happened, she took a cautious step forward and repeated the same motions until she was at least six feet away from the other two. 

"Uh, what're you doing?" Camry whispered, cupping the side of her mouth with one hand to help her voice carry. 

"Last time I was here, I got stuck in the ground and Dude had to carry me in," Saoirse explained without looking back. When her shoe was well behind her current position and nothing had happened, her posture visibly relaxed. "Okay, I think it's safe. Let's go." 

Ariadna's first steps were slow and steady, but when she stood next to Saoirse she, too, stopped worrying about the barrier. Camry sufficed to just stroll in; her confidence in the inhibitor locked around her wrist was growing by the minute. The barrier did nothing to stop any of the teens, and they continued on as before. The shadows stretched, darkening so quickly that it wasn't long before Saoirse wished that Camry could give them each a light to see by. 

"What's the plan?" Ariadna asked in a whisper, and then groaned low in her throat. "Right, I can't see your hands or your lips. Dammit." 

Camry rested an apologetic hand on Ari's shoulder before turning back to her girlfriend. "What is the plan, Seersh?" 

"I... I don't really know," she murmured in reply. They were crouched at the edge of the road and using a wide set of oak trees as cover. Just under a hundred yards away, a dark farmhouse rested atop a low hill. The windows were draped in black fabric, letting out absolutely no indication that anyone was home. "I only ever really saw the clearing last time. I was too focused on saving you." 

"Okay, that's... not much to go off of," Camry admitted softly. "But it's a start. I just wish I knew where Kordelle was so we could avoid him." 

Just saying his name sent shivers of terror and disgust up her spine. She spat him out of her mouth like the very idea was poisonous to her soul and peeked around the edge of the tree. "But, whatever we do, we can't let him know that Ari is still here in the city. If he can contact her dad, he will to tell him where she is." 

"That's the last thing we need, you're right," Saoirse agreed.

Suddenly, Ariadna let out a gasping breath and opened her eyes. Her right hand was outstretched, the palm aimed at the sliver of horizon they could barely see through the trees. A speck of greyish-white was just visible above the edge of the world. The moons were already rising? "You guys, I just heard it," she said quickly. "Two young witches are heading up the road behind us. One of them has a book under his arm, and the other's got a basket of plants."

"Maybe that's Kordelle?" Saoirse wondered as she also peeked around the edge of her tree to see the trail. "I think I remember Dude saying there was a younger girl in the coven, too." 

"That's gotta be them," Camry said. Her intestines were all tied up in knots, and she could taste nervous bile rising in the back of her throat. She was going to see  _him_ again, whether she liked it or not. Somewhere under the anxiety, though, a steaming lake of volcanic anger was beginning to boil faster and faster. "Should we try to reach the house and look inside before they catch up to us?" 

"No, that's too risky. What if we're cornered?" Saoirse pointed out quickly. "We have no idea what we're even looking for." 

Ari squinted in the weak half-light at Camry's lips to watch her reply. "Right, uh... Maybe something like 'divination?' Or 'locating?'" Upon seeing that, she stretched her hand back toward the rising moons and listened again for any new information. Camry and Saoirse fell silent as they diverted their attention back and forth between the road and Ari. Her magic, as undetectable as one hand clapping, pushed aside the veil and pressed the moons and stars for more details.

"... The book's spine starts with a "DIV." Maybe it  _is_ a divination spell book?" she wondered aloud, her pale eyes blinking open again. 

"Then we need to steal  _that_ from them," Camry resolved. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides. "Okay, I think I know what we can do. I'll go on the other side of the road and hide there. When they're about to walk between us, I'll take off the inhibitor and rush them. Once I have it, I'll keep going and grab you guys. We teleport as far away as we can and get the hell out of here. Okay?" 

Saoirse's hesitant nod was hard to see in the waning sunlight. "Okay, that sounds like a plan. Be careful, Cam."

"I will," she promised. Kissing her girlfriend briefly on the cheek, she rose from her crouch and scampered over to the other side of the dirt path as stealthily as she could manage. She dropped out of sight in a divot next to the trail and pressed in close to the side of another tall tree to better hide herself from the view of the two unwitting witches. They would be coming up the path at any moment, unaware and none the wiser about what lay in store for them. 

'Please, please, please let this work' all three girls mentally pleaded as they watched and waited. Seconds turned into minutes, which stretched on for eternities in and of themselves. When were they going to show up? 

They hadn't gotten wind of their presence and given them the slip, had they? 

"...cover's slipping off of them. Allie, please keep those covered better. The smell is  _really_ strong," a terrifyingly familiar Australian-accented voice complained from a fair distance down the road. There were their footsteps! They were close. Camry resisted the urge to peek too far out to try and get a glimpse of her targets. 

"I warned you not to come with me without your bandana," a young girl's voice answered matter-of-factly. "You should've listened to me." 

"And you should listen to  _me_ next time I tell you that you should study your divination more thoroughly," he quipped back. "That way, you won't have to drag me all over the hills to find such a  _specific_ plant for your collection." 

"Aww, admit it: you had fun," she giggled. They were almost in view by then, and Camry tensed all of her muscles in preparation. Her hand was poised over the bumps on the cuff, ready to press down on them and release the latch at a moment's notice. 

Kordelle didn't answer that. Instead, the arm that didn't hold a thick leatherbound book went out to stop Allie from walking any further. With just a look from him, she clammed up and swallowed her question about what he was doing. He began to sniff the air carefully, aiming his nose in one direction before shifting to a different spot when he had gathered what information he could. His footsteps were whisper-quiet against the dust as he drifted closer and closer to the spot where Camry lay in wait. 

Saoirse clapped a hand over her mouth as she stared, unblinking, at what little distance there was between her girlfriend and the boy who had wholeheartedly tried to kill her two months ago. Ari clenched one hand into a fist and shifted back onto her heels, leaning further into the shadows. She felt it rather than heard it: a twig snapped beneath her weight. Allie stifled a yelp while spinning to face where the sound had come from. 

Kordelle turned as well, and that's when Camry made her move. The cuff swung open and she dashed out into view, a fast-forward tile already materialized underfoot. She shot forward and swung past Kordelle, staying low to the ground as she wrestled the clunky tome from his loose, surprised grasp. A swift uppercut to the chin demolished his hold, and Camry launched across the road in a blonde and black blur. Allie screeched, but it was too late to even think of a spell to counter the assault with. Camry grabbed Ari's wrist and Saoirse snagged her girlfriend's shoulder-- and just like that, all three were gone in a whisper of smoke and ash. 

"Endellion?" Allie exclaimed as she rushed to his side, her basket swinging from the crook of her arm. She helped him up and squinted at his chin; there was no blood, but the area was already starting to spread with a purple mark from contact with a ghost. "What the hell just happened?" she demanded to know.

One hand on his jaw, Endellion grit his teeth and stared at the spot where his enemy had vanished. "I swear, I'll  _kill_ her! Come on, Allie. Let's go get Fan Liu. She needs to know that a ghost got away with one of our spell books."

Meanwhile, the unlikely trio materialized at the edge of the high school track field and collapsed upon impact with the ground. The tingling running back and forth through every inch of Saoirse's body was so familiar and kicked up such an adrenaline rush that she didn't even notice the soreness in her arm. Ariadna sat up with a strained wince and rubbed what she could reach on her back. A grass stain spread across the back of her T-shirt, and to match it a tender purple bruise had bloomed on her wrist. Camry lay facedown on the track, her cheek pressed into the recycled turf. When she popped back up, a few bits of the rubbery material clung to her reddened skin. 

"Did you get it?" Saoirse asked her quickly, and with a smile Camry held the book. Its pages were loose in the ancient binding, so she had to hold it closed very carefully. "Nice! I knew you could do it, babe!"

Camry's cheeks flushed, and not just from blunt force trauma. "Aww, thanks, babe," she giggled. 

"Get up, up, up!" Ariadna said, already on her feet and pulling the other two up as well. "We need to hurry! The plane takes off soon!"

Camry cursed softly under her breath and dusted herself off as the three of them ran off the school grounds. A quick call to her mother later, and a small, expensive silver car pulled up alongside the busy street. They piled in, filling the car with the smell of burnt grass and campfire smoke. 

"Are you three okay?" Sadie asked immediately while shifting the car into gear and rejoining traffic. Her answer didn't come right away as all three teens were still busy catching their breath, but her worries abated when Saoirse gave her a simple thumbs-up. "Good. We'll be at the airport in about ten minutes, so be ready to run in as soon as we pull up to the curb. Dad's waiting near the check-in area with the tickets and your bags. All you've gotta do is get on the plane and take off without any more surprises." 

She paused then and raised an eyebrow at her daughter, who was seated next to Ariadna in the back seat. "You  _can_ do that, right?" 

"Let's just see... how long it takes him... to catch up to us," Camry gasped out. Her hand was splayed out over her heaving chest while the other secured the thick book against her stomach. She wondered for a moment if the staccato beating of her drumlike heart could be felt through all the weathered pages. "We're almost out of here, though." 

With her breath caught again, she did her best to relay her mother's instructions to Ari via spelling out key words and mouthing the rest. Ari nodded: message received. Darkness had since fallen across the sky, and Bailey Lake was lit up with its stunning night life. The neon lights of signs advertising anything and everything raced across the car windows, filling the interior for a brief second only to be replaced by another. 

Before they knew it, the low building of the city's airport came into view as Sadie turned a corner onto a wide highway. In unison, Ari and Cam's hearts leapt into their throats and beat there erratically. This really was happening! After a short flight down to Texas, they would hop across the border and bypass all the red tape of traveling abroad. That's when the real adventure would begin. 

"You ready?" Camry asked Ariadna. The taller girl nodded firmly, making her brown ponytail bob behind her head. "Me, too."

Sadie pulled up to the curb with a little more speed than necessary and screeched to a halt. Ari threw open her door and bolted out, but before Camry followed after her, she leaned up between the front seats and planted a kiss on her mother's cheek, then on Saoirse's. "I love you both!" she called behind her, already out the door and catching up to Ari inside. They found Mason just where Sadie had said he would be: waiting with two bags and two tickets just outside of the boarding area for their flight to Del Rio, Texas.

His relief was as plain as the freckled nose on his face when he saw the two girls running up to him. Each one received a free hug goodbye with their ticket, and Camry kissed his cheek before shouldering her backpack. "I love you, Dad. I'll see you when we get back."

"Be safe, honey," he said. He kissed her forehead, and then she was gone, handing her ticket over to be scanned before she would be allowed through. Ari was right behind her every step of the way. Everything had happened so fast that her head was reeling from it all-- and to think that this was still reality and not just some crazy dream! The adrenaline sparking across every millimeter of her nerves confirmed that Ari definitely wasn't imagining this. 

By the stiff way they were sitting and how Ariadna, who had gotten the window seat on the small plane, was looking out at the tarmac every few seconds, it was obvious that they were nervous. What if Kordelle caught up to them before the plane took off? What if they were delayed any longer and ended up losing Dude's trail? There were so many wild factors playing into this plan, and with them all beyond their control, the fear of the unknown future was growing stronger. 

Cam, unsure of what she could do to show some sort of support and comfort, hesitantly placed a hand on Ari's shoulder. The brunette turned to look at her quizzically, an eyebrow raised to ask a silent question. 

"Is... this your first time flying?" Camry asked after a moment. Despite her usual ignorance for social cues, even she had to wince at the stupidity of such a topic. They were literally running from both the federal government and the local witch coven-- weren't there more appropriate things to talk about besides flying? 

"I think so," Ari answered shortly before turning back to the window. Camry flinched and settled back in her chair. Cool. That was sort of a failure. 

Well, she hadn't really brought anything with her to pass the time on the flight. Three hours wasn't all that long, right? 

When the plane finally filled up with passengers and the time to depart arrived, Camry and Ariadna had never felt so relieved to see the ground falling away from under their feet. Kordelle must have failed to catch up, and the government's high-powered sensors around the city hadn't been able to detect Relle Phantom's ectosignature despite how she had decided against putting the inhibitor back on after snatching the book. They were in the clear after all.

The plane had only been in the air for a few minutes before a flash of white light caught Ari's attention and drew it out the window. Pressing her face as hard as she could to the glass, she stared back at the rapidly shrinking cityscape only to see a huge white dome had fallen down around it. Pearly and translucent, it glimmered all the way from the middle of the lake to the exact opposite edge of the city. Wide-eyed, Ari sat back in her seat and stared at nothing in front of her for a long minute; they had literally been seconds away from getting trapped inside of Bailey Lake. 

None the wiser, Camry continued to play with her ring and try not to wear her lip bloody. 

Three hours wasn't  _that_ long, right?

~~

When they touched down at Del Rio International, neither girl had ever been so grateful to breathe in the open air before. The plane's cabin had grown remarkably warm despite the stewardess's best efforts to keep the temperature even and mellow, and more than one passenger had voiced their suspicions that someone had sneaked a lit cigarette onboard. Every time someone noticed something strange and said something about it, Camry had shrunk deeper into herself, trying to seem smaller and easier to miss. Her anxieties about being found out as Relle hadn't been this amped up since the first few weeks of having a secret identity. 

'Please don't let them find out. Please don't let them find out. Please don't let them find out...!'

Ariadna had noticed and, as the only one who could have possibly known the truth behind Camry's incessant stimming, had tried to calm her down by forcing her to stay still. Suffice to say it didn't work, and she eventually gave up to stare out the window with her hands folded firmly under her chest. 

Those three agonizingly long hours ticked by far too slowly, but like all adventures, it eventually came to an end. It was midnight by the time they arrived, and after claiming their baggage from the conveyor belt, they reconvened on a bench inside the airport to go over their map of Mexico. Sadie and Mason had certainly thought of just about everything when they bought the girls what they were going to need for this expedition. The map spread out across both teens' laps and then some, but they were able to clearly see the dot that represented the city they were currently in. Seeing as it was on the border between the two adjacent countries, it was hard not to include. 

"First we cross tonight," Camry said, using her index finger to symbolize the two of them jumping over the border, "and then we find a place to rest for the night. Sound good?" Ari nodded, and Camry packed away the map-- though, with how huge it was and how short she was, it proved to be a bit of a challenge with only two hands. Ariadna was too busy rifling around in their bags to help. 

She pulled the stolen tome out of Camry's backpack and flipped it over so she could read the weathered spine. Her white opal eyes, immensely strange-looking under the electric lights of the airport, blew wide open, and she wrenched the cover open with no warning. As she flipped through the pages rapidly, more and more highly detailed pictures of flora greeted her smugly. 

"This is a book about  _plant diversity!_ " she cried out. Camry could hear the spine cracking as Ariadna harshly spread it flat across her lap and slammed her elbows down against the pages. Her face was in her hands in an instant, covering her features entirely to hide her angry tears from view. 

She couldn't see much around Ari's elbows, but Camry tilted her head and caught a glimpse of a drawn leaf bracketed by lots of notes. The handwriting was really messy-- oh, wait, no. It was in another language entirely. Was that  _Greek?_  

"It's not divination," Ari moaned into her hands. "This is a field guide for  _plants_. We're never going to find them at this rate!"

"Hey, hey," Camry said quickly. She grabbed Ari's hands and eased them down, effectively guiding her to look up and read her lips. "It'll be okay, Ari. We were going to do this with or without the spell book, remember?"

When Ariadna didn't respond, Cam stood up and swung her still open backpack onto her shoulders. She crouched down in front of the brunette and gave her a small smile of encouragement. "Look, it'll be okay. We won't give up now, will we?" With her opalescent gaze cast down to the cringe-worthy 90s-patterned carpet, Ari slowly nodded her head once. 

"Exactly!" Cam stood up and shut the spell book, forcing Ari to stop leaning on it so it could close. The thick tome went into Ari's bag for safekeeping, and after both packs were zipped up, they left the airport far behind. A line of hot white light was visible on the horizon, marking where the border patrol worked nonstop around the clock. While sticking to yet another dirt road that night, they trekked toward it through the cool night air under the steady light of the seven moons and billions of stars. 

As they drew nearer, the faintest hum of insects buzzing caught Camry's ear and drew her eye back behind them. To her surprise, a line of blinking yellow lights was leaving a trail where they had been walking! "Fireflies?" she whispered, incredulous. Like chaotic garlands of Christmas lights, the tiny insects flitted only inches away without getting too close. She had seen them plenty of times in her life, but nothing quite like this had ever happened before. 

She jostled Ari's arm to get her attention and pointed out the tiny bugs following their footsteps. "Oh, wow," Ariadna murmured as she stared at the sight. "Why are they following us?"

Camry could only shrug in answer; the moonslight, as bright as it was, cast too many shadows to make lip reading possible. 

They continued onward, and slowly the line of white light clarified into a border wall with uniformed men patrolling to and fro across the top of it. They weren't armed upon first glance, but the sight sent a shiver of distaste through both girls. 'The bragging rights for this will be so sweet' Ariadna couldn't help but think as she took hold of Camry's hand. A tingle of warmth traveled through her, but when she looked down at her hand she was surprised that she could still see it. 

Then, white tiles appeared underfoot to create a disjointed staircase that gradually arced up and over the wall. Even hovering right above a guard's head, the projections didn't attract any attention whatsoever. Both girls stepped lightly, taking care not to make too much noise. Invisible didn't always mean undetectable. 

When they were about halfway up toward the wall, Ari looked back on a whim and sucked in a giggle. She smacked Camry's arm and pointed at what was so funny: the fireflies were still following them, landing on the tiles in little clusters when their wings were too tired to fly any further. Camry beamed at the sight and amicably tightened her grip on Ari's hand. 

"Whoa," Cam heard a guard murmur when they were right about to walk over him. The light of the fireflies glimmered in his eyes, and he immediately whipped out a smartphone so he could take a picture of the odd and magical sight. The girls were up and over him quickly after, leaving the United States behind with barely a whisper to announce their arrival in Mexico. 

Hand in hand, their journey had finally begun, and they were going to see it through to the end no matter what. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woohoo! We are counting down the days now! Please leave comments down below because I always love hearing your thoughts about how the story is progressing so far. Your input is super valuable to me!
> 
> See you in the next chapter!


	12. Language Lessons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, how many chapters will I spend on these two before things start to get shift gears? Hopefully not more than a few... 
> 
> Not that I don't love these two characters to death, which I totally do, but I certainly have a lot of excellent things in store for you all >:3c 
> 
> (... and where have Dude and Maria been all this time...?)

It was far too late to check into a motel by the time they skipped over the border and reached a small town only a couple of miles away from the wall. Under the light of the seven moons, they kept walking, no longer invisible or holding hands. As they passed a neon bar that bilingually advertised both alcohol and oxygen, Ari arched her back and winced at the soreness she was already starting to feel. Her backpack was so heavy with the spell book adding on an extra few pounds. If their journey had only just begun, she knew that she had better get used to the weight or suffer the consequences.

Camry was only a couple of feet ahead, walking faster and with a lot more ease even though her pack probably weighed more than Ari's. The young witch fought back a scowl; being a vigilante superhero definitely had its perks, not the least being that her muscle mass was deceptively higher than her human body let on. "Hey," Ari spoke up, and Camry immediately turned roughly forty-five degrees to look at her quizzically. "Where are we going to stop and rest? Everything's closed, and it's basically two in the morning now." 

"I don't really know," Camry admitted sheepishly, signing in tandem with her words as best she could. "I doubt we can get a room in a hotel at this rate." Of course, that implied that there even was a hotel in the city to go to, which there wasn't. Despite being right on the border, there weren't that many streets in this particular town, mostly because it was sandwiched between two much bigger cities and therefore easily overlooked. The lights from both were visible on the horizon even at this late hour. 

Walking to either one was going to take all night, so the two girls were stuck with what they had. Ari yawned and didn't bother to hide it with a hand. "I'm tired," she mumbled, blinking slowly. 

Camry nodded in agreement. After all, she hadn't exactly gotten a full night's sleep in four days, and just twenty-four hours ago she had been broken out of the government facility. So much had happened in the last day, so it was a miracle she wasn't dropping on the spot to sleep the rest of her afterlife away. She glanced around themselves, noting the relatively empty streets and dim alleys between the various stores. "Uhh..."

Ariadna rolled her eyes and seized Camry's wrist, dragging the shorter girl after her. "Oh, come on," she groaned. She had no trouble seeing by the moonslight, which whispered in her deaf ears that the back of a derelict pawn shop had a ledge of about four feet before dropping off into a dried-up creek. Ari found it in no time and, after spotting a piece of plywood that threatened to slip down the creek wall, propped the board up to make a little lean-to. "There. This'll work." 

"... Huh," Camry said, eyeing the set-up cautiously. Though it wasn't exactly a cardboard box in an alley during a heavy rainstorm, it still looked rather rough and uncomfortable. She eased herself down onto the ground next to Ari and pressed her back against the wall of the abandoned shop. Even slouching, her feet couldn't reach the ledge, so she didn't have to worry about slipping down into the creek bed in her sleep. 

Ari adjusted the plywood a little to better shield themselves from the street's view, then settled in with her backpack nested in her lap. It was dark in their lean-to, blocked from the moonslight and the neon street signs. When Ari suppressed a shiver at the chill that creeped up in her bones, she felt Camry reluctantly shift a little closer and lean her head up onto her shoulder. Warmth, gentle and more than a little welcome in their situation, blossomed from the contact and traveled down to her extremities. "... Thanks," she murmured, pushing back into her the tiniest bit. She didn't hear it, but the vibration from Cam's soft hum rumbled against her arm and let her know that her gratitude had been accepted. 

"Cam, I can't hear or see you right now, so just listen," Ariadna began. Curled up around her backpack, she rested her chin on top of it and let out a heavy breath. "I'm... not good at relying on people who aren't my family. And I'm not good at having people rely on me, either. So... while we're out here searching, I'm gonna try to work on that." 

She shifted a little, but Camry's temple remained like a comforting weight against her arm. "We have to rely on each other if we're going to make it out here. I know this situation kind of majorly sucks, but... thank you. For being here with me and not letting this just happen to me." 

Camry didn't respond, but the warmth coming from her ghostly core did grow a fraction. Ari smiled and leaned into it, supporting her new companion as she, too, drifted off. 

~

Morning came with a flash and a painful smack on the head for both girls when they slowly began to awaken a few hours later. With their makeshift shelter being the least sturdy thing possible, all it took to bring it toppling down was Camry stretching out her foot and knocking against the base of the board. The plywood slipped, dropping the top down onto their sleepy skulls while simultaneously flooding their bleary eyes with summertime daylight. Ariadna yelped and Camry winced, throwing the board off of them both unceremoniously. It slid down into the empty creek and lay there as punishment for hurting them.

"Owww," Ari groaned as she massaged where she had been whacked. Camry shook her head back and forth a bit like a dog to cast off some of her sleepiness. She signed, "Sorry," to Ari and rose to her feet, offering a hand down in apology. 

After adjusting her brown ponytail and shaking some of the wood dust out, Ari accepted the hand up and checked the display on her flip phone. At almost seven in the morning, it was probably a good enough time to get up anyway. They stretched, yawned, and shouldered their backpacks, all the while struggling to expel the last lingering dregs of sleep from their eyes and limbs. Cam scratched at her neck, irritated; sleeping on the dusty ground wasn't doing her fair skin any favors, and she wholeheartedly predicted she would soon be sporting a rash if sunburn didn't get to her first. 

"Hungry?" Camry asked. Ari shrugged mutely, cracking her neck to one side and then the other. Cam started to turn away as she spoke, falling into her old habit of talking mostly to herself. "Okay, let's go see if there's somewhere that's open around here. We should probably find a bus station, too, or maybe a train... Though, it's not like we know where exactly we're going, after all. Man, I kinda really wish we weren't stuck with making this up as we go along. This is almost stupidly familiar, too. Wow, has it really been over an entire year since that whole Crom Cruach mess first started? Can you believe it?"

She turned back to look at Ari, who hit her with an "Are you serious?" expression of utter annoyance. Chagrined, Cam apologized again and tried to explain that she had really just been rambling about unimportant stuff. They started back toward the main road side by side, their eyes grazing the dark store fronts in the hopes that they might spot their potential breakfast. A bakery that was in desperate need of a new paint job sat on the corner just up ahead. Inside, a portly woman in an apron reached toward the window and flipped over a sign that now read "Abierto." Ariadna smiled and pointed to it while guiding Camry over. It looked like they were going to be this shop's first customers of the day.

At first, Camry tried to order for the both of them, but her knowledge of the Spanish language, despite her very close friendship with Dude, was laughably small. Pointing sort of did the trick, but doing it felt so rude that a hot flush of shame flared up on her cheek bones in seconds. Ariadna stepped in quickly after that and ordered, and Camry handed her the money to pay. Of course, since they had hopped the nearby border rather than go through the more orthodox channels, their money was still American-- a fact that made both girls wince at the sight of the presidents' faces on their green bills.

The baker, thoroughly amused by the odd sight at such an early hour, accepted the American money anyway while telling them in heavily accented English that the currency was still of some use so close to the border. Hearing her native language spoken sent another wave of shame through Camry for assuming the other woman couldn't speak it, and she bashfully thanked her while accepting the paper bag full of goodies and her change. They brought their pastries outside to eat after wishing the good-natured baker a nice day and leaving to the fanfare of a small silver bell. 

Seated on the side of the road and with her freshly baked bread held close to her lips, Ariadna smirked at the ashamed expression on her companion's face. "You look sunburned already," she noted before taking a bite. The taste that flooded her mouth immediately brought a smile to her face, and she eagerly dove in for another bite.

Camry's hands went over her face, though they couldn't entirely cover up the glow of her blush. "Uuuugh!"

Ariadna swallowed her mouthful and let out a soft sigh. "I guess I'm gonna have to teach you Spanish as well as sign language, huh?" 

"... Yeah, probably," Cam agreed quietly before biting into her own bread. Her glaringly bright flush dimmed a little as a smile of her own widened. Under the rising sun, they ate in remarkable silence for quite some time. The only thing that broke that quiet near the end of their meal was the sound of a zipper shrieking open and yellowed pages turning in Ariadna's hands. 

Her expression was tight-lipped and grim as she pored over the spell book. Its foreign language, daunting and mocking her through its faded ink, stared back at her. She couldn't read this stupid thing even if she tried! 'Of course, it was too good to be true... Who could expect the perfect spell book to just fall into their hands right at the exact moment they needed it?' she thought. Her loose grip on the edge of a page tightened, and Camry sucked in a breath when she heard a soft tearing sound. Nothing came off of the page, but Ariadna's fingernails had scratched four holes into the old paper. Her hand shook as she pried it off of the page, and she clenched it into a fist in the hopes that it would hide her visible emotions. 

Camry, after dusting the crumbs off of her hands, patted Ariadna's arm softly and got her to look up. She signed slowly, spelling out the words she didn't know, "L-E-A-R-N language?" 

Ariadna scoffed at that and made to shut the book. Camry's hand between the pages stopped her, however, and the brunette lifted an eyebrow at her. "What are you talking about? I can't just learn Greek on the spot! Who would even teach me something like that?" 

Still, she kept the book open, freeing Camry's hand for signing. "I know. W-I-T-C-H-E-S L-E-A-R-N language F-A-S-T." 

"... I don't understand what you mean, Camry. I mean, I know a  _few_ languages, but that's because I use them all the time. I don't even know where I would begin with something like Greek." Camry made grabbing motions toward the book, and Ari passed it over without another word. The blonde flipped to the very first page and scanned it carefully, using her finger to track where her eyes went. When she spotted a small box with English lettering-- really, it was the only instance of any English in the entire tome-- she pointed it out to Ari and got her to read it. 

She read it once, then twice, and shrugged her shoulders. "It's just a random sentence. Not a spell."

Camry was glad that Ari was deaf, or else she would have easily heard the low grumble coming from deep in her exasperated throat. How in the world was she going to get her point across? Dude had told her once about how witches could instantly learn languages, which had eventually come in handy when she asked him to learn French so he could help her practice for her spoken final exam. Did Ariadna not know about this perk of being magical? 

So, with that plausibility in mind, Camry indicated the English sentence again before shifting her finger over to what she assumed was the same sentence only written in Greek. Ari's pale eyes scanned the foreign alphabet, moved away, and then did a very bodily double-take to read it again. She blinked rapidly, a disbelieving stare plain on her features. Her gaze darted helter-skelter across the page as she took in the sudden wave of words crashing down on her unprepared mind. "Wh-What the hell is going on?" she gasped, looking to Camry for answers only to be met with a confused expression.

If she was suddenly able to read the spell book... had she just  _spoken_  in Greek, too? 

Even so, Camry beamed at the progress they were making. "See what I mean?" she asked before gesturing with an open hand at the book. Even if they weren't going to get any real use for finding Dude and Maria from this text, at least it was useful for  _something_. Despite already knowing a little about witch culture from what the moons had taught her, Ariadna was still very much a student in the ways of magic. 

To let Ari begin browsing the book and exploring her newfound language, Camry leaned back with her palms pressed against the ground behind her. She looked around at the awakening town, taking note of the trickles of people beginning to emerge from their homes and stores. This was such a peaceful morning. The only thing that could make it better would be a cup of coffee for each of them. 

The sun climbed higher into the sky, and Camry shielded her eyes while squinting up at it. It was going to be a scorcher of a day, she predicted mournfully. Her skin was really going to hate her for this if she didn't put on some sunblock or a wide-brimmed hat. 'Maybe I should try to buy one soon... Maybe a pair of shades wouldn't hurt, either.' 

Suddenly, Ariadna began to flap her hands erratically and smacked Camry's shoulder half a dozen times within the span of two seconds. Cam winced and grabbed her attacker's wrist, sending her a questioning look. The grin on Ariadna's face was enormous, stretching from ear to ear and threatening to split her in half with its sheer delight. She stabbed her free index finger at the page she was on and tapped it over and over. 

Camry, peering at the indicated text, furrowed her brow as she leaned in closer. "Uh... what?" she signed. 

Ari's eyes widened, and then she let out an amused puff of air through her nose. "Sorry," she apologized. "There's a spell in here for locating places where specific plants grow." 

"Well, cool?" Camry answered, still oblivious to what the other girl was getting so excited about. 

 "No, no, no-- you don't get it!" Ariadna exclaimed, latching onto the other girl's arms and shaking her back and forth. "We can use it! For finding  _them!_ "

"Re-ee-ee-ee-eally?" Camry said, her voice catching in sync with the near-violent shaking. Even as her ears were starting to ring and a headache was already spreading behind her tired eyes, her smile was starting to resemble Ari's an awful lot. Still, she forced Ari to calm down after a few more seconds and regained her bearings. The world's axis was tilting, and it took a lot of blinking and staying still for it to right itself again. 

"Can we try it now?" she asked while pointing to the spell-- or, at least, what she assumed was the text for the spell-- on the wrinkled page. Ariadna returned her focus to it and skimmed the words carefully, taking in each part like they were the key ingredients to a divine recipe. Her face fell when she got to the end, however. 

"We can't right now. This part here says that we would yield the best results when we perform it at either dawn or dusk." Her slender brown index finger ran along the lettering, though it wasn't like Camry could read or understand the foreign language itself. "And... Oh. Oh, no."

"What's 'oh no?'" Camry immediately asked. Worry pulled her eyebrows up and closer together while she leaned in to look at Ariadna's face a little closer.

"I mean... it also says that to find the 'plant' we're looking for, we need to know its Greek or Latin name," she murmured. Crestfallen, Ari hanged her head over the spread pages and frowned deeply. "How are we going to make  _that_ work?" 

"... His full name." Ari didn't look up, so Camry tapped her shoulder to get her attention and then repeated herself. "Substitute the Latin name for a full name, and maybe that will do the trick?" 

"It's worth a shot," Ariadna agreed after a few seconds of silent thought. She smiled at Camry then. "Thanks. I... I don't know why it's been so hard for me to keep my chin up about all of this lately."

"I've had my moments like that," Camry admitted sheepishly while rubbing the back of her neck. Ugh, was her hair really so long that it was sweeping across her nape? She could practically already feel the sweat of her future gathering under the locks and making the strands stick to her skin. "A lot of them... Still, I don't want to give up so quickly. We have a mission to find them, right?"

Having caught the gist of what she said, Ari nodded resolutely and zipped the spell book back up inside of her backpack. "Alright," she said while standing and swinging her bag up onto her shoulders, "let's get going. You've got the map, right?"

In answer, Cam flicked open the enormous map and pointed to where she assumed they currently were. She shifted the tip of her finger a small distance southward and let it rest on top of another town before shooting her companion a questioning glance. Ari nodded; that was where they would stop for the night. Walking or making use of some other type of available transport, they were going to chip away at the distance between themselves and Ariadna's missing family, no matter what it took.

~~

Water bottles. 

Why in the world didn't they refill their water bottles before setting off? 

"You'd think my brush with dehydration-fueled  _death_ would've clued me in on the  _importance of water!_ " Camry yelled at the top of her lungs. She was already out of her share, and the empty bottle clipped to the side of her pack swung back and forth in a taunting pendulum's arc with every step. 

As luck would have it, there wasn't any public transport to or from the small town they had stayed the night in. The idea of walking all the way to their next goal, a city known as Zaragoza, was too much for either girl to bear, but it was connected via Route 29 to one of the two cities that had been visible in the distance during the night. With little choice other than to walk to that larger city and look for reliable transportation to Zaragoza, they had begun the trek along dry brushland that threatened to swallow up the two-lane road cutting through the countryside. With the sun rising higher and higher into the sky, the air had quickly grown warm and struck their airways with a surprising sharpness. 

Knowing full well that Camry was getting heated up in her exasperation as she walked ahead, Ariadna was silently thankful for her deafness so she wouldn't have to hear the hollow echoes of the blonde's complaints. She readjusted where the straps of her backpack sat on her shoulders to let the sweat cool under what little breeze she could feel. For the first week of July, this was a very abrupt shift in temperature to experience. Ari suspected it had something to do with the fact that they had both grown up in the Great Lakes area of America for most of their lives, and neither had adjusted yet to the sudden shift in latitude. Distant memories of surviving-- and complaining about-- the summers in Nevada tickled the back of the time witch's mind, urging her to think back on how she and her twin had kept cool while spending so much time playing outside.

"I'm surprised that you're so bothered by the heat, Camry," Ari called up ahead. The things in her pack rattled as she hiked it up higher on her back. Sweat was making the back of her shirt stick in the most uncomfortable of ways. "Shouldn't this be, like, your 'thing?'"

The blonde half-ghost turned to meet her opalescent eyes and signed a very punctuated "No," before explaining further in choppy sign language. "I hate F-E-V-E-R-S. So much. So, so much. F-E-E-L-S very bad. My heart C-O-R-E is very H-O-T."

Well, Ari figured, she had to get points for trying, and she wasn't entirely unintelligible in her methods of communication. 'Seems like Dude already managed to give her a decent enough vocabulary' she thought with a faint smile. "Oh, I think I get it. Do your ghost powers not really line up well with your body's needs?"

"Yes," Cam signed emphatically. "S-U-C-K-S. Very F-E-V-E-R-S."

A snort escaped her then at the terrible grammar before she could stop it, but there was no need to feel bad because Camry was smirking a little bit, too. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and flung away a few droplets of sweat that had begun to bead on her reddened skin. Indeed, it was just as she had feared: sunburn had set its sights on her, and it wasn't planning on showing any mercy. 

When they finally reached the outskirts of Ciudad Acuña, it was nearly two o' clock and their feet were beginning to sprout blisters inside their socks and shoes. After finding a water fountain and drinking their fill, they splashed themselves with the precious liquid and fanned each other to force a breeze to cool their overheated flesh. Their water bottles were nearly overflowing when they capped them and started off down the closest street. Their smaller, more current mission was to look for a bus station or a Tram that ran down to Zaragoza. If they were lucky, they could hopefully reach the city before nightfall and check into a hotel. Avoiding sleeping on the ground again was an unspoken goal they both shared.

To her relief, the city's proximity to the national border had been cause for many residents to become bilingual, so it wasn't too difficult for Camry to get around with asking for directions and purchasing essentials from nearby stores. After stopping at a branch of the bank with which her mother had set up an account for this exact trip, Camry and Ari finally got their hands on some legitimate Mexican currency and quickly set to go shop around. With snacks, sunblock, a wide-brimmed hat, and a pair of shades for each girl, their resources were finally starting to feel a bit more complete. 

While shopping, Ariadna squinted curiously at everything the medical aisle had to offer. If even half of her brother's stories about Camry's more brash tendencies had been true, then they were going to want to be prepared for the worst. She scooped up a roll of bandages, antibacterial ointment, painkillers, and antiseptic to deposit into her hand basket; after a second thought, she added a snake bite kit, bug repellent, and steel tweezers to the pile as well. Camry gave her a skeptical look while they waited in line to check out, but Ari shook her head as if to say, "Don't ask. Just trust me." 

Checking into their intended hotel turned out to be nothing short of nerve-wracking when they realized that basically all hotels had a minimum age requirement of eighteen for renting rooms. Ariadna did have her ID, but even as the oldest between herself and Camry, she was still a month away from turning seventeen. It would be a stretch to assume she could pass for an eighteen-year-old, no matter what she could do to look older. 

The receptionist eyed the two girls curiously, taking note of how they stubbornly kept their sunglasses on indoors, and accepted the offered money with a bored roll of her garnet eyes. Tourists... Each girl received a room key card and was told in Spanish that check-out was at eleven a.m. 

When the elevator doors slid shut behind them, both Ari and Camry let out huge breaths they had absolutely been intentionally holding in. Camry even pretended to be boneless and sagged against the wall, completely stunned that they had managed to successfully check in. A quick search online revealed why: they had both been thinking of American regulations by accident. 

After finding their room and locking themselves inside, Ariadna wasted no time in pulling the spell book out of her backpack and setting it down on the queen-sized bed. To conserve their money, they had opted to get a single room and just share what space that gave them. "Okay, it'll be dusk soon," she said as she turned to the page she had dog-eared earlier that morning. 

The edge of the bed dipped as Camry sank down onto it. Facing Ari and giving her a somewhat anxious stare, she met her gaze. "Are you ready to try this?"

Both of her fists were pressed against her sternum when her lips parted to answer. "Just tell me what you need me to do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we go, everyone! Their first day in Mexico-- not too exciting, I know, but hopefully this has still kept your interest so far. Be sure to stay tuned for more shenaniganery!
> 
> As always, I adore your precious comments and cherish each and every one of them, so please let me know your thoughts, predictions, headcanons, or just whatever down below! Votes are always appreciated, too.


	13. Rigorous Mortis

The spell, according to Ariadna, called itself 'Intermediate' in terms of difficulty. As she read the Greek silently and then translated it into English as best she could, her hands signed in order to help her process it all with more ease. Per her instructions, Camry unfolded their giant map and smoothed it out in the largest section of floor space, which was next to the sliding glass door that opened up to the balcony. Late evening sunlight in all its sleepy glory lit up the white spaces of the map with an orange light that also turned Camry's blonde hair to a fiery halo around her head and shoulders. 

"Okay, it looks like we still need some dirt," Ariadna said. She tapped the page with the tip of her index fingernail a couple of times. "Dirt and an insect common to the area where the 'plant' we're looking for grows." 

"How does that change if we're looking for a person?" Camry asked, also while signing the word for "mother" at the end of her sentence. Ariadna shrugged her shoulders in answer; this was entirely new territory for her as well. 

"Well, if we replace the Latin name with a full name and find something besides an insect... Although, it looks like we crush the insect, so maybe we do still need that anyway," she said, musing half to herself and half to Camry. She looked up then. "I want to try and search with my mom's name first, too."

"Sure, we can try that," Cam agreed. "So, should I go get some dirt and bugs?" She jabbed a thumb back over her shoulder and toward the balcony doors for added emphasis. When Ari nodded, Camry rose and abruptly shifted into Relle. The white-orange rings of light traveled fast across her entire body, leaving her companion to blink spots out of her sensitive eyes. "Oh, sorry," Camry signed in apology. 

Then, turning invisible before sliding open the door, she jumped up onto the sturdy ledge of the balcony railing and surveyed the scene. On the third floor, she could see a fair distance out across the city. A Tram car full of people zoomed past on its predetermined track next to the hotel and whisked them away in a rush of wind that ruffled her short blue bangs. Boy, did it feel good to be back in ghost form again. The constant thrum of her inner core, volcanically hot and yet completely natural to feel, was like wrapping a warm blanket around her shoulders on a rainy winter day. 

Relle's invisible tiles took her down to the ground, where she scooped up a handful of soil from a flower bed. Then, hopping up on another set of tiles, she poked around the lights flanking the hotel entrace until she had come away with a moth and a large fruit fly. Both squirmed between her hands, tickling her palms through the fabric of her smoke-colored gloves. She walked back up to the third floor cautiously so as not to spill any dirt or accidentally release her captives. 

With both hands full and no real chance that Ari would hear her tapping her boot against the door to be let in, she sucked in a deep breath and steeled herself for the inevitability that she would have to phase through the glass. The sensation of breaching a solid boundary with her own material form sickened her just as much as it had the first time she had done it. 'It's just a big window. You can see where you're going' Relle reassured herself mentally while sucking in a deep breath and letting it out through her nose. Even in the heat of the summer sunset, she still managed to fog up the glass with the heat of her breath alone. 

Walking quickly, it was over in less than a second, and she shifted back into Camry as soon as she was out of sight from the balcony. Ari offered her a soft smile when she returned and motioned for her to sit on the opposite side of the map. Still cupping her hands firmly together, she sank into a cross-legged position and waited for further instructions. 

"So, it's pretty much time to try this," Ariadna began. With the spell book flat in front of her and resting on the corner of the map, she leaned over it to see its words in the waning sunlight. "You'd call this dusk, right?"

She couldn't exactly sign with her hands full, so Camry elected to shrug and nod at the same time. Good enough.

"Okay. Uhmmm... Put a pinch of dirt on the four corners of the map and one in the center." Ari held the bugs for Camry so she could. Once a small pile of brown mulch was in each spot, she took back the moth and fly and settled in again. "Cool, cool... Now... It looks like I'm going to have to chant this spell out loud three times. When I start it the third time-- and I'll point to you when I do-- you're supposed to crush the bug between your fingers and drop it onto the pile of dirt in the center." 

Camry's lips curled back in distaste at the idea of squishing a bug with her bare hands, but she didn't object to it either way. She squared her shoulders in sync with Ari doing the same and watched as the taller girl let out a deep, calming breath. Quite literally, that was when the magic began.

Her chanting was quiet and hesitant, as if it couldn't be quite sure of itself. The foreign language twirled around Camry's ears in a mellow dance, and she had to fight to keep her breathing even. There was a new smell in the air, one of plants soaked with rainwater and freshly turned earth. Somewhere in the middle of the first run-through, Camry managed to catch the name "Maria Hinojosa" and didn't bother to suppress a melancholic smile. She missed the lady, as little as she tended to see her, so there was no question of Ariadna missing her a million times more. 

The chant ended for a beat before starting up again, and this time Ari's sweet voice carried it with a touch more confidence than before. It was as if the thought of her mother gave her a newfound strength to believe in herself and her magic. The name came and went, and then she pointed to Camry just as she had planned. Between her index and thumb, the fly crunched noisily, and she tried not to gag. The poor thing's tiny, flattened carcass dropped onto the center pile of dirt and rolled down the side a little bit but didn't quite reach the paper. It twitched most of its legs once, then curled in on itself and stopped moving altogether. 

Ariadna, finished with her spell, peered down at the still bug and frowned. "Umm... That's not what's supposed to happen." 

"What  _is_ supposed to happen?" Camry asked, equally perplexed at the anti-climax. 

Returning her eyes to the book, Ari skimmed the open pages once more and nodded. "Yeah, like it says: the bug is supposed to fall down one side of the hill, and 'its many legs will point to the different areas where the flora grows.' It didn't even touch the map, though."

"What if it's the W-R-O-N-G B-U-G? Or the D-I-R-T?" 

Ariadna's frown deepened in thought. "Well, first of all, this is how you sign 'bug.'" Holding up the number three, she put the tip of her thumb against her nose and wiggled the other two outstretched digits. Camry copied her, unable to resist grinning at the cute motion. "And this is the sign for 'dirt.'" This time, with both hands out in front and the palms facing up, she pretended as if she was feeling sand between her thumbs and middle three fingers. Again, Camry copied her actions and did her best to commit them to memory. 

"Second of all, I don't know if you crushed the bug enough. In the picture, the body is  _really_ squished." She held up the book and pointed at the picture to make her point clear. The thought of her bug-crushing skills being questioned caused a little steam to flare up inside of Camry, who silently accepted the criticism with a huff. 

"Try Dude's name?" Cam suggested as she scooped up the dead fly and tossed it toward the glass door. 

Take two went significantly better as Ariadna's familiarity with the words lent her more power and focus. Her voice filled the room, accosting all corners without yelling, but she caught a little the first time she said her brother's full name. Maybe she just wasn't used to saying it; he rarely referred to himself as Joaquín and never as Ricardo, but she had to say both three times as per the spell's guidelines. The moth was pulverized much more thoroughly than the fly had been, though the dusty scales from its wings stuck to Camry's fingers and left a bad feeling on her skin. It fell onto the dirt pile and rolled all the way down, its six slender legs fanning straight out as if manipulated by an unseen hand. 

The last word dropped from Ari's lips, and the room fell into an oppressive silence. Both teens stared with earnest at the dead insect. "So... it looks like..." Camry whispered, uncertain.

"I think it's pointing to..." Ariadna mumbled.

"Durango?" they asked in unison.

The moth, with its crumpled wings and flattened body, seemed to be indicating the entire state with its many legs posed by magic and rigor mortis. Splayed evenly, the insect gave no indication of an exact location; not even a smaller area within the state was discernible by the spell. 

"I guess it's as good a place to start as any," Ariadna said slowly. As she spoke, she turned her head side to side not unlike a bird examining an intriguing new object. "It's not too far from where we are now, too." 

~~~

Inside the impressively cluttered storage garage, the torrent of rain slamming into the metal roof echoed loud enough to drown out even the scrapes of metal against metal as Avery and Saoirse packed up the soon-to-be-abandoned laboratory. Whether or not their involvement with Relle Phantom's escape from 'jail' was about to be discovered, it was high time that Avery relocated her experiments for her and their safety. Of course, now that her two best friends were both out of the country, Saoirse's summer schedule had blown wide open and offered plenty of free time for helping out her new partner in crime. 

A smack of thunder in the distance seized Saoirse's muscles and nearly toppled the box of glass vials and beakers in her arms. She flinched, freezing in place by the open door and ekeing out a tiny whimper. Avery bustled past, so focused on moving quickly that it took two more passes for her to realize that Saoirse had stopped helping. "Hey, uh, you doing okay?"

Saoirse shook her head and glanced out at the rain pouring onto the soaked pavement just a few feet away. Another rumble graced the horizon, and she gasped. Her grip on the box slipped, and even as she lunged to catch it, only Avery's quick reflexes and close proximity saved it from becoming a box of glass shards. "Whoa! Saoirse!"

"I'm sorry!" Saoirse answered. Embarrassment darkened her cheek bones, and she lifted the end of her hijab to cover the lower half of her face. Like clockwork, another bout of thunder sounded in the sky. It was definitely louder than before, so the brunt of the storm had to be drawing closer to the city. Dread welled up inside the teen's gut at the thought.

"What's the matter?" Avery inquired as she set the box down. It clinked and rattled with muffled sounds, and then she was carefully putting a hand on the other girl's upper arm. Saoirse flinched away from the contact, and Avery drew her hand back. "You're... really shaken." 

"It's the thunder," Saoirse admitted after a tense moment. "I... I hate it so much. It's always scared me, ever since I was--  _Ah!_ \-- since I-I was little." Her little shriek interrupting her sentence, of course, was caused by yet another boom somewhere overhead. 

"Oh," Avery said, understanding dawning on her. "You... You know that thunder can't really hurt you, right?" 

"Of course I do," Saoirse huffed behind the fabric covering her mouth and nose. She squeezed her eyes shut even tighter. "I tell myself that  _every time_ , but--!"

The next wave of thunder was more like a crash, and even Avery had to resist flinching at how menacingly the sound reverberated through her thin metal box of a storage unit. Saoirse suddenly dropped into a crouch and covered her ears, her eyes threatening to leak tiny tears. Avery glanced rapidly between her and the sheets of rain pelting the moving truck waiting for the two of them. "Look, I'm no good with irrational fears, Saoirse, so I don't really know how to help you. What usually makes you feel better when this happens?"

Quivering like a leaf in autumn, Saoirse took several seconds to respond. Avery even had to repeat her question to get an answer at all. When she finally spoke, it was in a shattered whisper. "I... I call Camry. She sits with me, or... or just talks to me o-over the phone. But she's not  _here_...!"

Once more, Avery's eyes fell onto the rain pounding away at the asphalt just feet from where they both were. She was worried, of course, about the government finding out just why they were relocating all of her research like this. Speed was of the essence, but if this summer thunderstorm was going to slow down their progress, something had to change. Of course, changing the weather, as nice a power as that would be to have in times of crisis, was not an option. 

"Saoirse, I know this is hard for you. You're... You're away from your friends and stressed out. I  _get_ stress--  _believe me_. But we have to keep pushing on, so..." Avery trailed off for a few seconds as she glanced over at her truck. A lurch in her stomach spurred her into standing and rushing outside toward it. How had she been so careless to leave the windows rolled down for this long? She popped open the passenger's side door to start cranking up the glass and winced at the sight of so many miniscule puddles beading up on the hard plastic of her CD collection. Still scattered to all corners of the truck cabin, most had been pushed aside for Saoirse to nestle in amongst them on the drive over. 

Even under the gloomy grey light of the overcast sky, the holographic shine of a CD with no artwork in its case caught her eye. Avery picked it up and frowned; it was the only one missing its album cover. Was this the disc that had given up its identity to let Relle Phantom escape? 

Slowly, her frown morphed into a smile. In a matter of seconds, the pickup truck was turned on and the CD was loading in the dashboard's player. Avery rushed back to the storage unit and, speaking loudly over the rain hammering down on top of the tin roof, got Saoirse to look up at her. "Hey, you know the best way to drown out bad noise?"

"... What," Saoirse asked, her tone dull with embarrassment and weariness. 

"More bad noise." 

That was when Saoirse found herself curling up in a ball in the passenger's seat. It was a struggle not to smile at how the heavy metal music rumbled so strongly through the speakers that she could feel the cabin rattling all around her. Avery was back to packing up everything into the moving truck, moving quickly to make up for lost time. "Any better?" Avery had to yell even from three feet away to be heard at all.

Saoirse nodded hesitantly, and Avery beamed before scurrying off to keep going. Saoirse put a flattened hand against the nearest speaker; embedded in the dash, it pulsed with such an energetic rhythm that her heart's beating began to mimic it. Even matching such a fast tempo, she had to admit that her nerves weren't singing with the same fear as before. The thunder didn't have a chance in hell to boom with the same kind of power and might as The Dead and Restless. 

~~

"Hey, Cam. How's Mexico?" 

Sitting on her bed and curled up inside a mountain of blankets, Saoirse couldn't help but smile as she did one of her top favorite things to do: talk to her girlfriend. Twilight lit up what little of the sky that was visible around the heavy cloud cover left over from the thunderstorms of that day, and a half-moon had already risen above the horizon. Glancing out through her window, Saoirse could just barely see a few twinkling stars near the sky's zenith.

Over the phone, Camry groaned into the receiver, and a muffled  _whump!_  hinted at her flopping dramatically onto a bed. "It's. So. Different. And not, like, in the kind of ways I had been expecting, y'know? I mean, sure, I've got a bilingual dictionary in my bag, and Ari can more or less read lips in Spanish and English, but, like-- uuugh! I hate not being able to understand the people around me!"

Saoirse's full lips slanted in a somewhat pitying smile. "Aww, babe, that's just to be expected. Trust me, I felt the same way when I went to Mecca back in middle school. Not really knowing a language as well as you think you do is... very humbling."

Camry scoffed quietly. "You're telling me. I've got "No hablo español" down like a champ, though." They giggled in unison, and their spirits in turn lifted one another up. "But the search continues. Still."

"Any luck in that department so far?" Saoirse found herself leaning forward ever so slightly as she waited for an answer.

Camry blew an exasperated breath out through her lips and ruffled her bangs, which were starting to just barely tickle her eyelashes. Should she risk getting it cut while she was in Mexico? "Well... We kinda stole a book about plant diversity, not divination-- y'know, like we'd originally thought? But then Ari learned its language and found a spell for locating where plants grow, and we adapted it to try and look for people instead of plants. We tried it, and... I dunno. It kinda worked, but it's hard to say if it actually did or not." 

Her vocal timbre drifted deeper into a state of melancholy. "It's our only lead, so we're gonna have to take it, I guess." 

"Maybe it'll work, though!" Saoirse said brightly. "You never know, right? And besides, I bet there's something to be said about you and Ari combining your powers to accomplish a common goal. I've got tons of faith in you both." 

Lying on her back on her full-sized hotel bed, Camry smiled up at the ceiling and felt a shimmer of heat flush across her cheeks. "Thanks, babe," she sang. "I hope you're right, 'cause we really don't know what we're doing out here. I'm surprised that we haven't really gotten into any trouble so far."

"Oh, give it another day and I'm sure you'll run into  _something_ ," Saoirse joked. The sound of her girlfriend's laughter was music to her ears. "Just be sure not to make any rash decisions, okay?"

"Hey, I can be level-headed when I want to be!" Camry complained in rebuttal. "But... only when I want to be." 

"Aye, there's the rub."

"... Shut up."

"I'd tell you to make me, but we both know that'd be just a little bit difficult." They laughed together for a moment. "So, anyway... There was a thunderstorm today. A really big one right over the city." 

"What?" Camry launched into a sitting position and clutched her phone in a death grip. "Was the thunder bad? Did you make it through it okay?" 

"Yeah, it kinda was, and... I did, actually. Not at first, but-- heh, it's kinda funny, actually. Avery put on this heavy metal music in her truck and made me sit inside while we were trying to move her out of her old workshop. I didn't think it would work, to be honest, but it did." Saoirse scratched the top of her head, then let her hand linger on the back of her neck inside of her plush cocoon. 

"Oh. I'm glad it worked, but I wish you would've called me or something. I would've stopped to talk you through it," Camry replied, though even her best attempt couldn't altogether purge the faint dejection from her tone. 

"Hey, you're busy with more important things than my silly phobia," Saoirse shot back gently. "You just focus on bringing Dude and Maria back home, alright?"

"I know, babe, but you know I'm here for you, right? Even if I'm hundreds of miles away." 

Saoirse beamed at that and glanced back out through her window yet again. The moons were climbing higher into the sky, and more of the clouds had scuttled away to reveal a dusky backdrop of bright oranges, golds, and pinks. More and more stars had gathered in the darker parts of the sky, presumably to keep the moons company.

Even thousands and thousands of miles away, the stars were always right there beside the moons...

"I know you are, babe."

She sucked in a deep breath through her nose and let it out through her mouth. "Okay, so, you're gonna keep looking really hard, and you're gonna be safe while you're doing it. How're you getting along with Ari?" 

They talked for another hour after. Since neither had shifted time zones since they had last seen one another, their nights arrived at the same time, and with the onset of darkness came a comfortable sleepy feeling of contentment. It wasn't until their conversation petered out into quiet breaths and long, slow blinks that they decided that it was about time to hang up and hit the hay. They said their goodbyes quietly and ended the call together.

Still lying on her side on the hotel bed, Camry dropped her warm phone on the pillow and sat up, popping her back loudly as she stretched. Ari was seated cross-legged on her own bed across the room as she pored over the stolen spell book in search for clues to make the locating spell work with more precision. This new hotel also had a balcony, so Camry slipped out onto it and shivered when the cooler air met her perpetually feverish skin. She watched with a smirk as a slight fog wafted off of her shoulders and dissipated into the night. 

How strange it was for her to be so far from home and yet still feel so connected to it. Camry crossed her arms under her chest and leaned her forearms against the iron balcony railing. Deep inside, right next to where her core probably was pulsing with ectoplasmic energy, a tug timed itself to her human heart beat. What was it connected to? Bailey Lake? Her friends and family still up there? The underwater portal to the Ghost Zone? It was hard to say. 

Up above, the sky was a dusky midnight blue and scattered with a vast array of stars. Though light pollution obscured the more fantastic sights from her naked eye, she still had to smile up at all the twinkling pinpricks of celestial fire. The tug pulled again, stronger this time, and her mind was set. Spurred by the starlight, Camry jumped up onto the railing and turned invisible to shift into Relle Phantom. After all, the summer night was too perfect to be wasted in a simple hotel room. 

"North Star, show me the way," Relle proclaimed a second before she stepped off the rail and dropped like a stone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, after a month-long bout of writer's block, I return victorious with another chapter! 
> 
> As always, comments and kudos are forever cherished! See you in the next chapter!


	14. Clear the Air

As the moments turned into hours, then a day, and then seven days, Ari had to admit she could feel a shift in the air. That first night, when she had admitted to her unlikely companion that she wasn't very good at relying on people outside of her family, had helped release a weight from her chest, but not even her magical affinity could protect her from the failings of hope. She and Camry had a mission to complete, but it didn't have a concrete end in sight. That fact was slowly becoming more and more obvious as time wore on, and like the backpack strapped to her shoulders, Ari could feel it pressing her closer toward the center of the earth. 

Traveling by foot whenever they couldn't hop onto a bus or take a Tram line between cities, it looked as though it would take them about two weeks to cross Coahuila. Those two weeks were full of blisters on heels and sore muscles between each night in whatever motel was closest by the end of the day. A routine slowly established itself between the two teens, lending some semblance of normalcy to their reality that was anything but normal.

If you had asked Ariadna even a month ago if she ever thought she would be backpacking through Mexico in the company of a half-dead superhero, she would have laughed in your face.  

"Nooo..." Camry groaned when the buzzing of her phone on the bedside table pierced through the veil of sleep. Her hand reached out blindly, not touching anything, and barely even registered when her phone met her palm. In bed and as exhausted from the previous days' events as she was, it was little wonder that her immediate response was to swipe over the snooze option and catch a few more minutes of sleep. Who the hell got up at  _dawn_ during summer vacation anyway? 

Of course, this wasn't exactly any old summer vacation... And she technically didn't press the snooze button, either... 

"Why didn't you wake me up? Cam- _ry!_ " Ariadna's voice, needless to say, was a hell of a lot more effective of a wake-up call than Cam's old phone alarm. 

She cracked a crusted eye open and squinted up at the tall girl with an unbrushed ponytail tossed back behind her shoulders. A bright, rectangular light stared back in her face, momentarily blinding her until her eyesight adjusted and she could read the other girl's lock screen. The time read 8:47 am on top of a goofy selfie with her brother. 

"Caaam, wake  _up!_ " Ariadna groaned, rolling her white opal eyes in exasperation. "You were supposed to wake me up so we could do the spell!"

"Pleeease just let me sleeeep," Camry said, clapping both hands over her eyes while she rolled from her side to her back. "I'm so tiiired..."

"You know I can't understand you when you're not facing me," Ari sighed. "Now we have to wait until sundown to look for them-- we'll be wasting an entire day!" 

She sat up then, popping her spine along the way, and leveled a hard stare at her companion. "Nothing has changed since we first tried the spell, Ari. We know to go to Durango, and that's what we're doing. What makes you think that one more try is going to show us anything different?" 

"What, you don't think it's worth even trying?" Apparently, she had caught the gist of what Camry said then. "You'd rather waste a day doing nothing useful instead of waking me up when you're supposed to?" 

"I'm  _sorry_ , okay?" Camry shot back with emphatic signing to match. "But this is starting to feel like insanity, you know? We keep doing the same thing over and over, but we aren't getting different results."

Ari folded her arms over her chest then and let her phone dangle by one corner from her hand. "Do you just not care anymore? Is that it?" 

"Ex- _cuse_ me?" 

The motel-grade covers were thrown off of her body and nearly shunted off the bed with the force. Standing even with Ariadna, Camry's nose was even with the Mexican girl's chin, but the height difference couldn't deter her indignation. "How the hell can you ask me if I don't care? I wouldn't be hiking around a foreign country for just  _any_  oldreason!"

"You sure don't seem as committed to it as you  _could_ be," was Ari's stony response. 

Neither teen moved from their stand-off for several seconds. Just as it was beginning to seem like they would be there until they missed their next opportunity for performing the spell at sundown, Camry grit her teeth and shut her eyes. She stepped back once and let out a fast, loud breath.

"I already said I was sorry," she reiterated. Her hand motions were jerky with anger, but she kept them pulled in close to her body so it wouldn't look like she was trying to be aggressive. "I'm just tired, alright? I don't want to give up. I promise." 

Ariadna's quiet gaze roamed for a moment over Camry's disheveled, fresh-from-sleep appearance. With her arms crossed and her stance wide, she looked ready to pounce. Still, her shoulders drooped with a weariness of her own, and she turned on her heel to walk into the bathroom. The door shut with a loud bang; Camry heard the shower spit out a torrent of water a handful of seconds later.

Crestfallen, Camry sank back into the warm bedspread and flopped onto her back, throwing her arms out to either side rather dramatically. The sigh that escaped her then was peppered with flakes of ash and burning sparks that fizzled out in midair like the most short-lived fireflies in existence. 'So much for trying to get along...' 

The rest of their day passed in a similar fashion. With tensions mounting between the two of them and few ways to vent them out, the unforgiving rays of the sun seemed to boil their displeasure inside of their own bodies. What little conversation there was to be had invariably ended in abrupt snapping from both ends. Even afterwards, when a seed of regret for the harsh words wedged itself into their lungs and started to sprout, they only choked on the leaves when either tried to apologize for it. 

Curse those long summer days-- sunset could not have taken longer to arrive. The small town where they stopped for dinner had a graveyard set roughly a mile away from the closest street, so as soon as the sun began to reach for the horizon and shoot rich golden light over everything in sight, the pair hoisted up their backpacks and made for the gates. It was secluded enough to give them a little privacy for performing the spell, and there was no doubt that plenty of bugs would be crawling in the valuable soil around the gravestones. For no particular reason that she could see, a sudden shiver grazed up Ariadna's spine and fanned out across her shoulders when she passed through the short, iron gates. She shrugged it off with a roll of her eyes and dropped her backpack to the side of the center gravel path.

They knew the drill by heart at that point, so there was no need to talk or give directions. Camry, cupping a mound of dirt in her hands, returned to the patch of dry grass where Ariadna had spread out the huge map. During the process of pouring out the five even piles on the center and four corners, Ari returned as well with what Cam presumed to be the necessary bugs. When Ari opened her hands just a fraction to make sure she hadn't lost her grip on her cargo, however, Camry's heartbeat stopped dead in her chest.

"Not that one!" she gasped while her eyes darted back and forth between Ari's face and the bug in question. "We can't use a  _spider_ for this!"

Ari's brow lowered in suspicious irritation. "Why not? It's a harmless one-- 's not like it'll bite you before you crush it." She knelt down on the opposite side of the map, which was in desperate need of a cleaning after so much use, and held out her hands for Camry to take the moth and spider. 

Cam's dirt-covered fists remained stubbornly on her lap. " _No way_. Arachne will  _kill_ me if I kill one of her children." 

"... Okay,  _what?_  I seriously did not understand a word you just said." 

It wasn't the easiest task in the world, but somehow, with the help of a lot of spelling and made-up signs that had Ari rolling her eyes in annoyance, Camry managed to tell the short version of her story concerning Arachne. "I have her T-R-U-S-T, but I can't kill her C-H-I-L-D-R-E-N, which are  _all_ other spiders." As if it would lend some sort of credulity to her tale, she finished by using two fingers to indicate where the four pale scars left from Arachne's fangs were in the side of her neck. Streaks of dirt were left in their wake against the desaturated red of her young sunburn. 

"Fine, no spiders, then," Ariadna finally gave in before picking up the poor creature by a few of its legs and flinging it away. "Go find a replacement bug, and hurry. We're running out of daylight." 

"Thank you," Camry signed before jumping up to go do just that. She returned with a worm a moment later, but an unamused, "Are you serious?" type of look from Ari made her realize her oversight and rush off to try again. They needed a bug with  _legs_ , after all.

The spell, just as it had every time before then, only indicated the state of Durango upon its completion. The moth, their crushed victim, kept its legs fanned out and rigidly straight, leaving very little room for interpretation or clarification. Camry glanced over at Ari to carefully assess her expression, but her features were surprisingly blank. She rose to her feet, turned a half-circle, and promptly reared her leg back to wail on a clump of unsuspecting grass. In the height of summer, it was so dead and dried up that it only took two solid hits to send it flying over the tops of three eroded headstones. 

"Hey," Camry said, also rising and reaching a hand out toward her. Ari didn't hear her, of course, and proceeded to attack another clod. "Hey,  _hey!_  Ari, c'mon."

Her palm settled with gentle pressure on Ari's shoulder, and at the contact Ari slowly deflated like a balloon, her anger evaporating into despair. It was as obvious as the nose on her face and the frustrated tears welling in her piercing white eyes. When she turned to look at Camry, the shorter girl opened her arms in invitation and offered a half-hearted smile. "I'm sorry, Ari."

Coaxing her into a hug was a slow and hesitant process, but the end result had the two girls kneeling on the ground and embracing with the sides of their legs pressed together. Ari, as Camry found out soon enough, was a very quiet crier, and she especially seemed to find comfort in having the space between her shoulder blades rubbed with small, slow circles. There was no use in her talking when communication was quite metaphorically a one-way street in this position, so Camry humbly resolved to be a brick wall for Ari to vent against. 

"I just want them back, Cam... I miss them so much! A-And nothing's working-- I got my hopes up with this spell and  _nothing's! Working!_  What are we going to do?" she sobbed into the other teen's shoulder. Her cheek, damp with saltwater, pressed against the pinpoint scars on Camry's neck and mixed the dirt there into a trace of muddy goo. "I'm so tired... of walking, of searching without finding anything...

"You were right," she sighed after a brief intermission. Pulling back, she looked her companion right in the iolite eyes and hiccuped, "I-I'm sorry I got mad at you this morning. You were right-- this  _is_ starting to feel crazy."

"I'm sorry, too," Camry replied, notably misty-eyed herself. The pads of her fingers tried to wipe away some of the salty mud on Ariadna's cheek, though it succeeded in pulling streaks through it more than anything else. "I need to be more reliable for both of our sakes. I'm not gonna let myself sleep through any more alarms from now on." 

Thankfully, their make-up's cathartic release of their pent-up emotions helped them both drop peacefully into sleep once they had found a suitable spot to set up a meager camp within the graveyard's gated boundaries. The town they had found was too small to have even a tiny motel, so their only option had been to sleep under the stars in what they hoped was a safe enough area. It might have left plenty of room for intruders, but the fence still offered some semblance of protection that did its share in easing their anxiety about sleeping outside again. 

They didn't need blankets-- Camry's ghostly core more than made up the difference in temperature for both of them, which was how they eventually dropped off with Ariadna curling an arm around the shorter girl's middle and resting her cheek on the flat space between Camry's chest and left collarbone. Once they could ignore the occasional sounds of far-off night life and the prickly, dry grass poking them through their dusty day clothes, sleep claimed them both with eager hands. 

Unfortunately, it was apparently just as eager to let them go only a few hours later. 

A smoky hiccup racked Camry's frame, startling her awake in sync with Ari stirring at the vibrations traveling across her sensitive cheek. A plume of blue-grey vapor left the blonde's mouth and hovered in the air above them, so upon sitting up they both found their faces accosted by the fumes. "Ugh--!" Ari groaned as she rubbed at both eyes with the heels of her palms. 

"Oh, not  _now_ ," Camry griped. Detaching herself fully from Ariadna's side, she stepped around her backpack lying on its front and scanned what she could see of the graveyard. Under so many new and waning moons, what light she had to see by was pitifully dim even with such a clear night sky. 

"What's out there?" Ariadna asked in a whisper. Camry didn't verbally respond, though she did motion sharply with one hand to stay down and back. 

Her ghost sense didn't usually go off with such a dark shade of smoke for just anything. 

Camry spun back around to face Ari and stared into the darkness behind her. Yes, just as she thought: those whispers weren't just a figment of her imagination after all. It was impossible to make out what was being said, but she thought she heard multiple different voices mixed together in the conversation. Still in human form, Camry moved back to Ari's side and pulled her to her feet as well. "Be ready to run," she wanted to say, but the deep shadows making up their environment made it difficult for her lips to be read. 

Suddenly, Ariadna gasped and stabbed an index finger at the nearest headstone, which had begun to glow with a faint white aura. Before their very eyes, more and more grave markers followed its lead until the entire graveyard was awash in a misty light. Camry kept a protective hand out to her side to keep Ariadna separated from the ghostly power. "If you can understand me, then, please, just leave us alone!" she called out while scanning the scene from one side to the other. "We don't want any trouble!"

"Bruja," a sneering voice called out clearly over the sea of whispers. The white light began to spread like dry ice fog across the dusty earth, and from it arose humanoid figures in all shapes and sizes. The spectral images clarified rapidly, giving distinct features to each one: men, women, and children had all been buried in this graveyard, and just as many now resided within the plot of land alongside their sunken bones. 

The first time it was said, only one ghost among the crowd had mentioned it; now, the mob began to converge around the two teens while chanting it in a steady, slow rhythm. "Bruja. Bruja. Bruja. Bruja." 

"Hey--  _hey!_ " Camry snapped in retaliation. She shifted over a little to shield Ari with her whole body rather than just an arm. "I don't need to make more enemies, but I will if you don't knock it off!" 

Ari's nervously shaking hand found Camry's shoulder. "Should we run?" she whispered, unable to take her opal eyes off of the crowd closing in on them. Immediately, a ring of light flashed around Camry's middle and changed her appearance from that of a typical high school girl to an undead, crime-fighting superhero. 

Before she could answer, however, one of the ghosts stepped forward a bit more and leveled a pickax at the blonde's chest from a few yards away. A rather sickly-looking woman, she had a knot of colorless hair tangled up on top of her head and a steady grip on the handle of her weapon. The ghost demanded something in rapid Spanish-- or, at least, Relle thought she demanded something. Between her poor grasp on the language and the ghost's outdated accent, it was impossible to parse out anything she had just said. What's more, the specters were still somewhat transparent, which made it difficult for Ariadna to read their lips and translate. 

"N-no hablo español," Relle replied, then repeated herself with more confidence when she saw how the other ghosts all looked at one another in apparent confusion. 

"Bruja!" a child no older than six or seven cried out. She cradled a tattered cloth doll in the crook of her arm and aimed an accusatory index finger at the teen in question. "Bruja, bruja!"

"Are they calling me a witch?" Ariadna asked low into Relle Phantom's ear. 

Relle nodded without backing down from her defensive stance. "No hablo español!" she yelled again. 

The same woman with the pickax yelled something once more, this time with a heightened sense of urgency in her tone. "Si necesitas ayuda, hijita, ¡deja de proteger a la bruja y mantente a un lado!"

"Lo siento, pero no hablo español!"

" _Dios_ \--!" she groaned, clearly exasperated by Relle's stubborn attachment to her best-known phrase. The ghost's eyes flashed an even brighter shade of peridot green than before and stared directly into Relle's pupils. "You truly are going to make me use to the common tongue, child? You clearly are not from anywhere around this area." 

Relle's jaw dropped before she could stop herself. "Y-You--? Oh,  _duh_ , Ghostspeak! Sorry, sorry. I completely forgot about that." Her eyes, too, shifted from sphalerite to peridot and glowed much brighter than they usually did, indicating that she was making use of the innate language that all ghosts shared. It really gave the idea of a "dead language" an entirely different meaning.

"We were asking you if you needed help, girl," one of the men reiterated while adjusting his grip on the ancient shotgun propped up on his shoulder. "Just stand aside, and we will free you from that witch's control."

Relle shook her head quickly and waved both hands from side to side. "No, no, no. Gosh, no, please. It's alright--  _I'm_ alright. This is my friend, Ariadna. She is a witch, but she's not controlling me at all." A gesture with her hand coaxed Ari into taking a hesitant step forward, but to her surprise the entire mob of ghosts skittered back two more steps to make up for the difference in proximity. 

"What's going on?" Ariadna asked under her breath. She kept shooting Relle pointed, questioning glances that went unanswered every time. "Camry? What do they want?"

"How is she not controlling you?" he asked, a fierce glint in his eye. "What ghost would dare risk itself to be so close to a witch? You must be insane."

"Not insane-- she's a friend, and she doesn't have anything against ghosts," Relle assured him in as calm a voice as she could manage. "We're just trying to find some people that we lost, so we're traveling to where we think they might be."

"Camry? Are we in danger?"

The blue-haired half-ghost looked to the side and answered, "I'm not sure, but give me a second." For that, even with all the extra light coming off of the ghosts' glowing, Ariadna gave her a confused stare. "What is it?"

"Are you... talking? Like, in actual words?" 

"We don't want a witch in our graveyard," the armed man stated rather boldly, especially for one who had jumped in fright as soon as said witch stepped a little bit closer. "We've risked too much to keep their kind from getting rid of us. If you're on  _her_ side, then you both need to leave. Understand?"

Relle nodded, though she wished more than anything to try and make these people understand that they weren't in any danger. Face set, she shifted back into her human form and shouldered her backpack by one strap. "Fine, I understand. We'll go find somewhere else to sleep tonight." 

"No, you leave this  _town!_ " someone else from further back in the crowd demanded. "We ain't taking  _any_ chances with you people!"

"Alright, alright!" Camry yelled back. "Message received! Jeez..." A quick gesture to Ari later, they had their packs and were on their way down the gravel path. The rocks crunched too noisily under their shoes, and the sounds only seemed to grow in intensity when paired with the silent stares of the ghosts' eyes on their backs. Camry made sure to keep Ariadna ahead of herself, thereby keeping herself between the innocent witch and the territorial ghosts.

The hinges of the iron gate creaked; in the stillness of the night, it could have been cannon shots. A rush of air left Ariadna's lungs and she flinched with her entire body, retracting her hand from the cold metal like it had burned her. "Ari?" Camry called to her uselessly before grabbing the top handle of the other girl's backpack. "Hey, what is it?"

"Ella está usando magia!" the same little girl screeched in terror. She clutched her doll closer and buried her nose in its yarn hair. All around her, the adults advanced with their weapons at the ready: shotguns were cocked and aimed, hands holding knives reared back to strike, and green energy gathered in the palms of their hands. 

Camry cursed and kicked the gate open while shifting back into Relle for the second time in the last ten minutes. Her arms went around the unresponsive Ari, and together they dashed away on pearly white tiles made to look like individual frames in a film reel. A gunshot, then a second and third followed after them, not hitting the mark but doing its damn best to keep them from coming back. 

When Ariadna next opened her eyes, she shrieked and scrambled to take stock of herself. All her limbs-- yes, there they were-- but why was the ground falling away? She was thrown over someone's shoulder, and that person was running on air--!

She didn't hear Relle acknowledge her rousing, but she was aware of their slowing down and returning back to the dusty earth. Her feet were reunited with land, and she whipped around to look at the ghost before her. "You... What happened?" Ari asked slowly while using two knuckles to massage her throbbing temple. A burst of fire erupted in Relle's upward palm to offer Ari enough light by which to see and read her lips.

"I could ask you the same question," Relle Phantom replied, though the look on her face said she was less upset than she was worried. "You spooked them, I guess, and they went on the offensive." 

Ari took a moment to look around. The little town was nowhere in sight, even on the horizon, and it looked like the terrain had leveled out. Weak moonslight illuminated clumps of brush and very little else. "I... I didn't mean to listen, but--" she started to say, then cut herself off abruptly. "Wait. Where are we? How long were you running?" 

The rings of white light appeared again, and momentarily Camry stood before her, backpack and all. "I'm not sure. Getting away was our main priority, so I tried to put lots of distance between us and them. What did you 'listen' to?" 

"I think it was the history of the graveyard," Ariadna answered softly. "There was... a lot to take in. I didn't mean to scare them. I'm sorry..."

"It's okay!" Camry said quickly, reaching forward with the hand that wasn't currently holding fire to pat Ari's arm. "We're fine, and they're long gone. I should have thought ahead before we set up camp in a graveyard of all places."

Ariadna nodded and attempted to give her a smile. "So... Are we roughing it here, then?" 

"Not many other options, are there?"

" _Great_..." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know things are kinda slow right now, but I just pulled myself out of a month-long writing slump so hopefully we'll all get to see some better things come our way soon. Thank you for sticking with me and this story! You have no idea how much your support means to me.
> 
> Please leave a comment and share your thoughts so far! What are your predictions? Hopes? Fears? I must know them all >:3c


	15. Connect to Reconnect

I hope it doesn't make me sound like a terrible person when I say that there were times when I was actually pretty grateful that Ariadna is deaf. Her disability is a part of her identity, of course-- I think I understand that pretty well. As it stands, though, there were definitely moments throughout our journey through Mexico where her being unable to hear me were nothing short of blessings in disguise.

It took me nearly two weeks to own up to her about the nightmares. Actually, the entire day leading up to that rather uncomfortable conversation was a pretty bizarre one, even by my skewed standards. 

The morning started pretty regularly with the two of us performing the spell at dawn and then going back to bed when it yet again told us to go to Durango. By that point, we were only a day away from crossing the border into that exact state, so our spirits began to lift while the hours wore on. Our hiking brought us to Torreón, a large city right at the border, around one o' clock. 

Omniscient POV~

Ariadna giggled adorably at the open-mouthed expression on Camry's face the moment they strolled into the city limits of Torreón. "You might swallow a cicada if you're not careful, Cam," she advised before swallowing the last mouthful of water in the bottom of her bottle. 

"I wish I had my Polaroid," was Camry's breathy response. The city's allure was undeniable within every square inch of the architecture, both ancient and modern, and all the unorthodox tourist could think about was taking pictures of everything that caught her keen, far-sighted eye. 

Lunch, happily consisting of spicy street food and water, was eaten on the stone rim around a fountain in the Plaza Mayor Torreón. With the sunlight simmering on their already burned skin and threatening to melt the flesh off of their bones, the misty spray from the fountain's jets felt  _wonderful_.  Pausing in her eating, Ariadna leaned over the edge of the rippling pool to take stock of her reflection's warped appearance. After two weeks under the Mexican summer sun, she could easily see her freckles resurfacing across the bridge of her nose and forehead, which was not to mention the extra ones flourishing along her arms and shoulders. Her skin was naturally warm and tan because of her ethnicity, but the repetitive hiking across the country had added a new shade of depth to her skin tone. 

A flicker of movement in the water caught her eye, and she looked up to see the cause of it. Camry signed "What is it?" again and waited expectantly for a reply. Her burrito was nearly gone-- a fact that brought Ariadna some measure of satisfaction and triumph. The first argument they had had during their trip had been about Camry wasting perfectly good food, which had absolutely gotten a rise out of Ari's deeply ingrained habits to conserve and recycle almost everything. After basically living together and working as a team to make their new mission feasible, it was only natural that some of their better habits had rubbed off on each other. 

"Just checking for a sunburn," Ari replied after swallowing what was in her mouth. "Do you think we need stronger sunscreen?" 

Camry frowned pensively and looked down at her own mirror image, distorted as it was by the constant sprays of the fountain. Her hair was getting too long for her liking; it brushed the tops of her shoulders very obstinately when it was let down, and she was constantly forced to fix her bangs to the side to keep them from poking her in the eyes. What's more, even with keeping her sun hat on throughout most of every day, little brown freckles of her own had begun to flicker into existence across her nose and cheeks. The reddened skin on her shoulders peeled up in small sections and was tender everywhere else, which didn't help how she had to cart around a heavy backpack everywhere she went. 

"Maybe we do," she agreed, then took the final bite of her meal and crumpled up the tin foil wrapper. 

Ariadna smiled and said, "While we're here, we should definitely try to ask around for my brother and mom. How many copies did they let you make of those pictures?"

"Three of each," Camry answered while indicatively patting one of the front pockets of her backpack and signing the number 'three' for added measure. "Just in case we lose any, or they get worn out." During their last stay in a hotel, the staff there had been kind enough to let Camry and Ari use their phones to print off a picture from each device. The locating spell was good enough--  _hopefully_ \-- at pointing them in the right direction, but it seemed like once they were in Durango, the girls would need to resort to other methods for searching. 

It was important that the pictures they printed off were the most recent ones they had of each missing person, which was why the picture of Maria came off of Ariadna's phone and the one of Dude came from Camry's. Maria, not exactly the type of young mom to take pictures of herself, only ever seemed to have been coaxed into the fun when they involved a photo with or by her children. Roughly two months ago, Ari and Dude had convinced their mother to splurge a little bit and buy a nice cake to celebrate her 37th birthday. The picture that Ari and Cam were using now to try and find her was of Maria posing behind the small, ornate cake with a large candle burning on top. She smiled wide, clearly delighted at the modest celebration.

Of course, as luck would have it, Camry had a remarkably recent picture of Dude saved to her phone: it was from the night of the dance competition, just before things had been so immediately and wholly flipped upside down. Saoirse, the social media mogul she had built herself up to be, was always down for documenting her excursions, especially when it came to her two best friends in the entire world. That was why she had insisted on getting a picture of Dude and Camry when they had all met up outside of the venue before the competition. The lighting was surprisingly good for being so deep into twilight, but that must be the reason why it's called "magic hour." Dressed in their then-dormant costumes, Dude had his arm around Camry's bare shoulders in a gentlemanly fashion, and she was holding onto his far side in a loose but friendly grip. As the ray of sunshine everyone knew him to be, Dude's grin was contagious even through the confines of time itself; when just looking down at the picture on her phone, Camry's lips threatened to turn up on their own accord.

"Okay," Cam said while shifting her seated position to better face Ari. "Tell me the phrase again really slowly. I wanna get this down." 

Ari folded the tin foil of her own vanished burrito and stared down her eager pupil. "Has. Visto. A. Este. Chico."

"Has visto a este chico," she repeated carefully, feeling her way around the unfamiliar language. If she didn't have multiple years of French under belt, she knew that her words would have sounded a hundred times clunkier than they already did. As it was, the battle against her habit to not pronounce the 'h' in 'has' was consciously fought. 

"Bueno!" Ari cheered. She wasn't exactly one to judge intonation, but from what she read on Camry's lips, it looked correct. "I think we can safely start asking people around now." 

Camry let out a relieved sigh and murmured the phrase under her breath again just for good measure. "I'm glad. Should we start here? Maybe we'll get lucky."

"Are you sensing any witches in the area?" Ari asked. As little good as it did her to get her hopes up, she couldn't help how the idea brought a buoyant, airy feeling into her chest. As usual, the feeling was gone in a matter of milliseconds once Camry shook her head regrettably. 

"No. I'm sorry." Cam offered an apologetic half-smile in sync with, "You're the only one I'm sensing anywhere around here." 

"It's okay," Ari replied softly. In her lap, a corner of her folded tin foil pad tore off under her fingernails and crumpled beneath their pressure. She drew her gaze down toward the wrapping and mumbled, "We aren't even in Durango yet. There's no helping it." 

A few seconds of deliberation later, Camry reached a hand out and tapped on the back of Ari's fingers to get her to look up. When she did, her eyes couldn't help but take in the determined expression on her companion's face. "Hey, ¿has visto a esta mujer?"

"You remembered the word for 'woman,'" Ari said with a wan smile. "And the gender switch for 'esta.' I guess Dude was right-- you do have a knack for vocabulary." 

"I-I try," Camry said in a stammer while using her palm to try and rub some of the humble blush from her cheeks. Not even sunscreen could protect her from the consequences of her own bashfulness. "Look, we'll find them soon. I  _know_ we will. All of this-- it's not for nothing."

"You keep telling me that," Ari whispered. With the spray of the fountain's jets running, she was nearly inaudible. "I really,  _really_ hope you can help me make that happen soon."

From in the side pocket of her backpack, Camry's ringtone for her mother suddenly blared to life, and she scrambled to answer it. Oh, was it that time of day already? Ari settled back a bit more in her spot on the fountain's rim and allowed her eyes to wander across the plaza. With so much white stone making up all of the pavement and the nearest buildings, the glare from the sunlight was amplified to the point where she dug around in her own pack for her sunglasses. There were plenty of people mingling about in solitude or small groups. A pair of joggers lifted their chins at her as she watched them run close past her location, so she waved her hand ever so shallowly in response. 

"No, Mom, we're fine. It's so  _hot_ , though! Yes, lots of sunscreen and hats-- ugh,  _please_ don't remind me. I can already see a bunch popping up on my face right now. This is why I prefer to stay in the shade.  _Mooom_ , don't call them ' _cute!_ '" Camry groaned as she slapped a hand over her eyes and tossed her head back dramatically. 

"Anyway-- yeah, we should be in Durango by the end of the day."

"No problems so far, I guess."

"Mom--  _Mom_ \-- my battery's gonna die soon, so I need to hang up now. Okay, we will. I love you, too. Bye!" 

~~

The boundary between Coahuila and Durango was pretty understated, especially away from the interstates and highways. Neither girl was entirely sure when they passed into the new state, so it was up to the GPS on Camry's dying cell phone to tell them when they had arrived. Looking at the small, rectangular screen, Ari felt her heart swell inside of her chest. They had made it!

... Sort of.

After settling their belongings in a hotel just inside the limits of the state, Camry turned to Ari and resolutely put her hands on her hips. "Alright, we made it to Durango in two distinct pieces. We need to celebrate." 

Ari, having caught the gist of what Camry had said without the use of sign language, eyed the sunburned blonde somewhat suspiciously. "'Celebrate,' huh?"

"You bet!" Cam cheered. Her hands drew into fists in front of her chest out of excitement. "This is a milestone if I've ever seen one. And besides, we kinda owe it to ourselves to celebrate our progress."

"I can't argue with that," Ari agreed. She cupped her chin for a moment and frowned in thought. "How should we celebrate, then?"

Camry pretended to zip her lips, lock them, and throw away the key, all with a sly wink. "It'll be a surprise! But we gotta go down to the grocery store and pick up a few things first, okay?"

"And you know you can't go anywhere without me, which is why you're bringing it up at all," Ari surmised. Her faint smile was vaguely amused even as she used both hands to comb back the flyaway strands of hair that hung in front of her face. "Alright, let's go. But don't think I won't try to guess what the surprise is while we're there."

"Woohoo!" Cam cheered. Her backpack's zipper let out a harsh shriek when she opened it to search for her wallet. With the vital money and a key card to their room for each of them both pocketed, she was ready. 

The supermarket was packed with crowds of people when the two girls arrived after a short walk down the street. Children with their parents begged and pleaded for sweet treats while shopping carts squeaked across the linoleum. At one of the checkout stands, an older woman seemed to be arguing about a coupon, most likely expired, with the unyielding teenage clerk. The air was just a little bit too cold, but not so cold that anyone would bother trying to change it. 'Just like back home' Camry thought with a homesick smile. 

After grabbing a cart and riding on the back of it toward the nearest aisle, Camry let her eyes roam over the many, many options laid out before her. "No. No. No. Ummm..."

"I hate to be that person, but this is the  _spices_ aisle," Ari muttered as she sidled up to her companion. "I wouldn't blame you if you were out of your element here." 

A hand on her chest, the affronted but very noticeably white girl spun to face the mischievous grin on Ari's face. "Why, I  _never_ \--!" she started to squeal, but then dissolved into giggles at the sight of such an obviously good-natured expression. 

"What a low blow," Camry replied. "And I can't even fire back. You win this round, Ari."

"Always," Ari said with a noncommittal shrug of one shoulder. "Alright, so tell me what we're here for already." 

"I gotta find the right aisle first..." As she spoke, she turned away from Ari without thinking and, when she spun back around, blanched at the unamused stare she was met with. "Sorry. Let's go explore a little bit?" 

Their adventure took them past aisles of medicines, cosmetics, and toiletries, whereupon Ari snatched a pack of pads and tossed them into the cart. "I didn't think we'd be out here this long," she explained softly. Camry accepted it with a nod and tapped the inside of her left arm.

"I'm glad you thought of it ahead of time. I didn't even think about that 'cuz I have a blocker now. Keeps me from getting periods, y'know?"

"Why?" Ari inquired while they turned a corner and found themselves bordered by a wall of boxed hair dye. 

"My mom was worried I would have...  _issues_ with my powers during periods, so she recommended-- Ooh,  _look_ , Ari!" Her hand shot out toward the box that had caught her eye. Almost as if her will had called it closer, she was surprised to see the hair dye reach her hand so quickly. Chalking it up to excitement, she brushed it aside and instead eagerly showed it to Ari. "This is the color I would dye my hair if my mom would let me!"

Ari took the box in one hand to see for herself-- of course, the neon shade of bubblegum pink before her was probably visible from space. "Wow. That's, uh... bright."

"I wouldn't even have to bleach my hair 'cuz it's already blonde," Cam pointed out. "God, I wish I could..." 

"What's stopping you now?" Ari gave her back the box and put both hands on her hips. "We're literally unsupervised and in a foreign country. Your parents are nowhere to be found."

"I-I couldn't," Camry answered. The box went back on the shelf. "It'd be a waste of our money, y'know? And I don't wanna be  _grounded_ as soon as we go home, either..." 

Rather than pressing the issue of her independence, Ari chose to drop the matter. "Alright, if you say so. What else do we need to get?"

Something strange was happening, and not for the first time, either. As they walked through the grocery store and mulled over different items, the things that Camry fixated on, even for just a moment, seemed to drift toward her as she moved past. Off-brand cookies, soda, and other such types of junk food in particular were the main offenders, but she was so busy running through her mental checklist that she hardly noticed anything was different. Unfortunately for the clerks who would be cleaning up the store after closing, it looked as if someone had let their hand graze across the shelves, pulling along everything they touched along the way.

Their cart was loaded up with chocolate sauce, caramel, chili pepper powder, and on-the-go popcorn poppers in tin foil cases by the time Ari understood what the surprise was. "Are we making really sugary popcorn?" she asked. The beaming grin on Camry's face said it all.

"Yep!" she replied. "It's gonna be a girls' night for you and me. We're gonna eat tons of popcorn and watch those late-night Spanish soap operas without the subtitles, so it's like we both get to make up the dialogue for the actors." 

"That... is  _so_ lame, and I  _love_ it," Ari said. 

Back in their hotel room, which was notably furnished with one bed because all the double rooms were filled thanks to the summertime tourist trade, the lack of a microwave did little to deter either girl. By holding a popcorn casing in the palm of each hand, Camry's volcanic ghost powers made quick work of popping the kernels in a flurry of loud noise and steam. Just as she had promised, their treat was sugary as hell and warmed by a little kick of the chili powder, and the cheesy soap operas ran late into the night. 

Eventually, it was time to go to bed; Ari had insisted that they perform their usual routine with the spell first thing in the morning. "What if us being here changes the results this time?" Not one to dismiss such a likely possibility, Camry agreed and got ready for bed around eleven o' clock. Showered, dressed in pajamas, and with most of the popcorn shells picked out of her teeth, each girl settled into their own half of the bed and gradually drifted off. By naturally running so hot, Camry had been relegated to sleeping on top of the covers since Ari refused to share the blankets-- an arrangement that worked just fine for both of them. 

Outside their third floor window, the city simmered down in sync with their own sleeping, and all was peaceful.

~

2:13 am

The hotel room was muggy, and not just from the residual summer heat leaking in over the shoddy air conditioning. Camry's core was active, letting out an excess of heat from deep within her liminalized body. Behind her closed lids, her eyes twitched one way, then another every few seconds. Less often, a hand would clench into a fist or a foot would try to kick its way off of the queen-sized bed. 

In such close quarters, it was inevitable that one girl would roll over and unintentionally make contact with the other. Ari, unconsciously feeling rather than hearing Camry's nightmare-fueled fretting, shifted over under the too-warm sheets and threw an arm out to the side as if it would somehow calm her down. Her brown fingers landed on the tanning sunburn where Camry's neck and shoulder met.

There was no warning: no flash of light, no sound, no earthquake. Ari's eyes shot open just as her dry lips parted. Her irises were already pale as could be in all their white opalescence, but now it looked as if her scleras had entirely taken over every visible millimeter of her eyes. They glowed with a faint light of the same colorless shade just as Camry's body was immediately awash in the same aura she always had as a ghost. Nothing else had changed about either teen's appearance.

An echoing  _thud_ broke the silence only half a moment after, and the called-upon intruder let out a mellow curse under his breath as he lay supine on the floor of the hotel room. Sitting up, he rubbed where the back of his head had struck the thin carpet, and then let his gaze roam around his surroundings. 

"Wh... What the--?" one Joaquín "Dude" Hinojosa whispered into the darkness of the unfamiliar room.

~*~

Ari was more than just a 'little' confused.

No, she was  _incredibly_ confused. Maybe throw a little bit of "downright stunned" into the concoction, and you will get close to her emotional state. 

She hardly remembered drifting off, though that was how most people naturally fell asleep. Still, that didn't explain why she had suddenly fallen to the floor and sat up in a room that was completely different from the hotel. 

First of all, stacks of books were piled up like stalagmites in every possible direction, obscuring her view of whoever or whatever else was nearby. A bright light source was just visible through the spaces between the books, but she couldn't quite make it out from her position on the smooth wood floor. Ari rose to her feet carefully and spared a glance down at herself.

'Still pajamas' she thought, then turned her attention back to her surroundings. There were rows and rows of bookshelves all around, reminding her fondly of the local library back in Bailey Lake. She seemed to be in a slightly separated section of this 'library,' however, since there was a dark wooden end table with a lamp on it just a couple of feet away. Next to it sat a love seat, and in that love seat was none other than the sleeping figure of her younger twin brother.

"Aahh!" Ariadna gasped in a whisper before she lunged toward him. Under the lamplight, his expression was one of peaceful exhaustion. A thick book with yellowed pages lay open on his chest, which rose and fell in a sleepy rhythm. One hand had fallen off the cushion of the couch and was reaching toward a black ballpoint pen with no lid to be found. A spiral bound notebook also lay on the floor nearby; it was flipped open to a page already half-filled with notes and scribbles and diagrams. 

Her hand fell on his upper arm to try and shake him awake, but she drew back the second she saw her silhouette flash with a hazy white aura. "What the fuck?" she hissed in Spanish while turning her arms this way and that. "I don't-- I don't even--!"

In his sleep, Dude shifted his position on the love seat and let out a huffy breath between his lips, which broke Ari's concentration on her mysterious condition and brought her back to the situation at hand. She crouched down to peer closely into his face. "Your eyes are  _glowing_ ," she noted, and it was true. Through what little of a part there was between his nearly shut eyelids, a white light seemed to have overtaken his eyeballs. He didn't especially look bothered by it, per se, especially in such a deep sleep. 

'What do I do with something like this?' Ari had to wonder. 'Where even am I? And where is  _he?_ ' 

Next to her knee, the pen that Dude had likely dropped after drifting off rolled past, disturbed from its resting place by her presence. Ari picked it up and stared at it for a moment, taking note of how that same white aura had come back when she touched the pen. She could still hold it, so she wasn't exactly incorporeal like a ghost-- that's one fear checked off her mental checklist. 

'I should write him something!' Ari realized. Seizing the book on his chest, she slid it out from under his grip and made to start carving out her message when she thought better of it and set the book aside. 'I shouldn't write in books. Okay. Uhm... Oh, I know!' 

She pulled his arm into her lap and pressed the tip of the pen against the inside of his forearm, where the nib easily left a faint but still legible scrawl on his skin. Throughout the entire process, Dude hardly made a sound; although, he did at one point try to take his arm back and roll over, which made Ari's 'O' look very strange as she tried to reclaim her grip on him. "Work with me here, Dude," she grumbled. "I'm trying to  _help_ you."

~*~

He had no words. Literally. No words were coming to his brain as he tried to make sense of the sight before him.

Was this a dream? It wouldn't surprise him if he had drifted off in the library while taking notes. Even as an energetic witch, he still had his limits, and he did have a  _lot_ of catching up to do in order to draw even with his other siblings in terms of magical prowess. 

It was too dark to really see much beyond the bed, but all the sparse and plain furnishings in the room suggested a cheap hotel of some kind. There were two figures on said bed: a short-haired blonde lying on top of the covers and a longer-haired brunette stretching out under them. They lit up the immediate area with a pale glow, making them both look otherworldly. 

"Wh... What the--?" he whispered before taking the three steps necessary to bring him against the side of the bed. He leaned over the sleeping girls carefully, making sure to keep some distance. A dream or not, Dude knew what kind of guilt he would wake up with if he acted creepy toward his best friend and sister, even on accident. 

"Me... f'here..." Camry mumbled while tossing her head toward him. Dude noted how her brow was furrowed and her breathing wasn't even in any stretch of the definition. 

"What the fuck is going on?" he asked himself in Spanish. Reaching out ever so hesitantly, he lay his hand on Camry's forehead and quickly pulled it back. Wow, she was warm! "Can... you hear me? Cam? I think you're sick or something."

No answer. "Guess not." 

Moving his gaze to the other side of the bed, Dude saw quite clearly how his twin's eyes were wide open and glowing an unearthly solid white, as if she was blind or maybe possessed. "Yikes... Weird dream..."    

"M... out'f... ere...!" Camry groaned again. She lifted her chin, still completely asleep, and raked her short fingernails down the column of her throat, leaving behind four pink trails on her white skin. Her contact with Ariadna never broke, nor did it ever get any closer. 

"Whoa-ho- _ho_ ," Dude said. He grabbed her poised hand in one of his own and pulled it away from her neck before she could make another pass at herself again. "Cam, you need to wake up. Hey, are you in there?"

"L'mme  _out_ ," she cried, her hand going limp in his hold. "L'mme out'f'here...!"

"Cam, what's the matter? Work with me here." 

~*~

Ari was caught, plain and simple. She had just barely finished writing her message when she saw the light from an opening door spill into the room from behind her. Someone was there, and there was no way that they hadn't seen her sitting in front of the love seat!

Now, crouched down behind the seat, she waited in suspense for the big reveal, for someone to grab her and pull her out into view, for her to be caught just like her brother was. 

But it never came. 

When the suspense reached too high of a height to take any longer, Ari risked a peek above the back of the couch. Another boy around their age and with the same nose shape seemed somewhat amused as he held up his hand. Balanced on his extended index finger was a little orange flame that gave off more than a candle's worth of light. She couldn't read his lips in such conditions, even with the light from the lamp there to aid her, but he reached out with his other hand to shake Dude's shoulder. Could he not see that she was there as well? 

As always, her twin was reluctant to be roused from sleep, and it usually took a bit more effort to snap him back to reality. He awoke with a startled gasp and a burst of motion, which he channeled into sitting up immediately. Ari didn't see anything else in the library world as the white glow faded from Dude's eyes and he blinked his vision back into focus. 

With the library's disappearance came a weird sensation in her stomach-- one of falling, maybe, or-- 

_**THUD**_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is getting long, so I'll cut it off there >:3c Feel free to call me evil and other similar names in the comments below. I probably deserve most of them.
> 
> Also, if this seems unclear, then you'll have next chapter to look forward to since I shall clear up confusion there. Thank you for all of your support! I'll hopefully have the next chapter out sooner than in the past couple of months since SCHOOL'S OUT FOR SUMMER, BABY!!


	16. Legendary

**_THUD._ **

**_THUD._ **

Going from one completely strange place to another in the span of an instant wasn't a completely foreign sensation for Ariadna. She had been teleported when they had stolen the spell book from Kordelle. Even so, the whiplash caused by traveling from the hotel, to an unknown library of magic, and then to the middle of the Mexican desert in almost no time at all left Ari's head spinning in a way she had never experienced. 

Her ankle-- God, her ankle was  _screaming_ at her! Her shoulder hurt, too. What the hell had just happened?

" _Agh!_ " she yelled at the top of her lungs, then forced herself up into a sitting position to try and take stock of her surroundings. The night air was chilly in a dry summery way, yet it bit at the back of her throat when she took in a breath and inhaled a lungful of kicked-up dust along with it. She massaged what she could reach of her throbbing shoulder and slowly blinked the wooziness out of her eyes. 

'Okay.  _Okay_. I'm fine, everything is fine. Except my foot is  _gone_ \-- no, it's in a hole. Gotta step out, that's all.'

" _nnnNOPE!_ " Ari cried out when she tried to pull her foot free and instead was met with a metaphorical slap to the face for her efforts. She had only felt pain like this once before, back when she had been around six or seven years old. If memory served, she had fallen off of the elementary schoolyard's swing set near the height of her arc and landed wrong, which resulted in a sprained ankle. Her brother had helped dry her tears before he carried her to a teacher. Ever since then, despite his unyielding encouragement to get back on the swings with him after her sprain had healed, she had always been hesitant to do much more than watch from afar. 

If she couldn't get herself free, the next best thing to do was to look for help. The dust had more or less settled down, affording her a romantically moonslit view in all directions. There were no buildings within sight, nor a road she could discern. Only cacti, dry dirt, and brush surrounded her. 

Well, all of that and one other person lying on her side some twenty feet away. Now dressed in her monochromatic hazmat suit, Relle Phantom was trembling violently while curled into a tight ball. Ari couldn't hear her, of course, but if she could then she would have heard quiet whimpers and muffled pleas for help. Who she cried out to was a mystery, even to Relle herself. 

"Camry!" Ari called out as loud as she dared. "Camry, hey! What the hell just happened?"

"Mm...  _mmmngh_.. A-Ari?" Relle, creaking and groaning like an old woman, slowly pushed herself part of the way up and looked back to see Ari waving her over. There were fresh tears running down her face, and every haggard breath she let out released a puff of hot steam into the night air. By the glow of her ghostly aura, she was ashen and clearly not well.

"Are--  _ow!_ \-- are you okay?" Ari asked softly, reaching toward her with both hands. She had shifted her trapped foot a little bit. "You changed. And, uh, you don't look so good." 

"M-My head is... spinning," Relle ground out, curling up to press her forehead against the cool dirt in front of her. Anything to relieve the heat was welcome against her feverish skin. "I don't-- where-- where are we?"

Ari couldn't understand her in that position, so she had no way of answering. "Look, I've got a lot to tell you. I saw my brother just now! I left him a message-- but now my foot is stuck and I think I sprained my ankle, so can you move? Please come and help me up, Cam. I really need your help right now."

" _Rrgh_..." she moaned as she pushed against the earth with both arms and struggled to keep the world from swaying. Signing with one hand once she felt steady enough, she replied with, "One... second. Just hang on."

~*~

Someone was shaking him awake-- he was getting pulled away from his sister and friend! The hotel room disappeared in an instant, and with the gut-wrenching sensation of opening eyes that were already open, Dude awoke to reality. His muscles reacted without a conscious order, forcing him upright with jerky motions. The teen who had roused him took a half step back and tried to suppress his amused smile. 

"Morning, sunshine," he laughed. "You maybe wanna go to bed for real this time? The library's not a good place to sleep. Never know whose magic's floating through the air," he added while helping Dude to his feet. The magically-conjured flame on his hand flickered as his concentration wavered, but only for a second. 

A hand to his forehead, Dude blinked rapidly to right the world's axis again. "Yikes... Crazy dream, I guess." 

"Like I said, it's all floating through the air. You study too much." 

"What time is it, Miguel?"

Miguel didn't need to check the phone in his pocket in order to answer. "About two-thirty in the morning. Good luck waking up in time for breakfast, hermano. You going to bed now, or what?"

Dude nodded before bending down to pick up his fallen supplies. Reaching for his notebook and pen, he did a double take at the sight of narrow black streaks all over the inside of his right arm. It was too dark to make them out, and he was having a difficult time finding it within him to care at such a late hour. Notes and pen now under his arm, he followed Miguel out of the library. Once in the hall, they parted ways with well wishes and strolled off to their own rooms. 

The marks caught his eye again when Dude reached out to throw open the covers on his bed. With a lit lamp on the nightstand right next to him, he had no trouble reading them-- well, after doing a little bit of 'yoga' to try and get the right angle. What he saw next nearly took his breath away.

****_We are  
coming CALL   
CAM NOW - A_

"It...  _wasn't_ a dream," he whispered. Taking his index and middle fingers, he ran them over the ink and watched it smudge under his touch. Yes, this was  _real_. He  _wasn't_ imagining this, just like he hadn't imagined seeing his sister or Camry in that hotel room! " _Wow_...!"

~*~

It took her a while to get her feet back under her, but once Camry shifted back to her human self the fever began to dwindle into safer territory. Digging Ari's leg out was a snap after she got her bearings back, too. Apparently, the fall had caused her to drop onto a thankfully vacant snake burrow, which then trapped her foot when the sprain made it too painful to move. When walking back to the hotel seemed unlikely for her injury to handle, Camry silently offered her a piggyback ride and started walking in what she assumed was the right direction. 

"You're never gonna believe it, Cam-- I saw  _Dude!_  He was sleeping in this library somewhere, and I wrote a message on his arm to call you A.S.A.P. He'd better do it, too. Ugh, my ankle hurts. I don't want to think about how this is going to make traveling difficult. I'd hate to make you carry me  _and_ all our stuff.

"Do you have any ideas why we were out here all of a sudden? I-- Oh, shoot, I forgot that I can't read your lips like this. Dang it. I guess we'll talk when we get back to the hotel. I hope you know where you're going, 'cause I sure don't." Her rambling, spurred on by her excitement for finally seeing her lost family again, went unanswered the entire way through the desert. 

As it stood, Relle's teleportation was still in an adolescent stage of development, which meant it could not have sent them more than a couple of kilometers from where they had originally been. The dim lights of the city's night life appeared on the horizon after only a minute of walking, and they grew steadily brighter the closer they got. Up above, two of the seven moons were nearly full and offered a clear view of the flat and lonely desert. 

That's why, when a faint movement made itself known in Ariadna's periphery, she could turn her head and perfectly see the black animal trotting along beside them. Ari squinted carefully, looking the lean dog up and down multiple times. Its fur was pitch black and reflected little to no light, as if its coat was so dark that it absorbed the moonslight like a black hole. Two stubby gray horns jutted up in front of its ears, which were alert and following the sounds of Camry's heavy footsteps. What really set this creature apart, however, were its glowing ruby eyes and the hoof-shaped tracks it left in the dust behind it.

To Ari's silent horror, the creature met her gaze and then immediately stared to the right, where her eyes turned to see another animal like the first. This one was white with a slight tint of gold to its horns and hooves, but the same ruby eyes stared right back at her. Its fur was like solidified moonslight, beaming a glow around itself from the tip of its Borzoi-like nose to the tuft at the end of its tail.

" _Cam_ ," Ariadna whispered sharply, but received no response. Camry was so lost in thought that it took another, louder whisper to grab back her attention. She inclined her head to show she was listening, but then dropped her jaw when Ari put up her hands like blinders against the sides of her face. 

"What the--?" Camry started to exclaim, but Ari spoke again.

"Cam, don't look anywhere but straight ahead, and keep walking," Ari ordered in a stern tone. "We're being followed, and I think I know what they are. They're called cadejos."

"Cade-- huh?" Even against the warning, Cam tried to look back over her shoulder and was forcefully made to look forward. "Ari, what's going on?" 

Ari, of course, couldn't exactly hear her, but she spoke as if she knew what was being said. "I don't know why they're following us, but they're kinda like spirits that guide travelers. One of them is evil and the other is good, but-- but I don't know which is which. Some of the stories say the white one is, but others say the black one is the nice one.

"Look, just don't look right at them, okay? Don't provoke them, and don't try to talk to them, either." Ari clenched her teeth when a sudden jostle tossed her twisted ankle around, but she didn't put down her hands. " _Oww_...! Please, just trust me on this."

"I didn't sense any spirits," Camry murmured under her breath. "My ghost sense didn't go off. What if they're just wild animals and Ari hit her head on a rock?" 

Her nerves steeled themselves, and without any hesitation Camry stopped in her tracks and pivoted suddenly to her right. Ari screeched and ducked down as best she could, squeezing her eyes shut in fear. "Are  _you_ the deaf one?" she screamed. 

"Whoa..." Camry breathed as she blinked multiple times to process what she was looking at. They were dogs-- no, they were goats?-- that radiated such a powerful yet silent aura with their crimson stares alone. No matter which one she looked at, Camry could feel their eyes peeling away the layers to her very core and judging what they found there. 

She could only hope that they liked what they saw. 

"C... Camry?" Ari asked softly. She slowly lifted her head, then opened one eye to peek at the scene before her. Nothing had happened so far; no cadejos had tried to rip their throats out, so that had to be a good sign, right? Once she was looking with both eyes, Ari had to fight to urge to wince at the sight of both creatures acting so calm and composed. 

She had read countless books on South American cultures, and once the ghosts in Bailey Lake could no longer be called hoaxes, her interests had been drawn deeper into the supernatural parts of said cultures. The stories about how meeting one of the cadejos on roads at night gave the traveler a fifty percent chance of surviving, and encountering both often meant that one cadejo would protect the human from the other. Listening to the moons also gave her ear over to whispers of the spirits, and the moons never felt like sparing any details about gore and death. These spirits were bad news. Even just addressing one directly was supposed to drive the traveler insane if they weren't killed first.

"Cam, w-we need to go.  _Now_." Ari tightened her grip on the smaller girl's shoulders urgently. "They shouldn't attack us if we don't pay them any attention." 

"They... think we're strange," Camry said, her voice soft and breathy with reverence. "And they wanted to watch us. They know we're not normal people." 

"Why aren't you  _moving?_ " Ari exclaimed. "The cadejos are dangerous!  _Camry!_ " 

Another scream built up in her throat and suddenly died as the white cadejo trotted forward, its hooves kicking up the smallest clouds of dust in its wake, and stood up on its hind legs. Now eye to eye with both girls, it blew out a heavy breath through its nose and sank back onto four legs. Its counterpart came forward as well then and sniffed up Camry's bare leg, then moved over to take in a whiff of Ari's sprained ankle. She struggled to not flinch back and spook it, but Camry seemed too peaceful to have such a fearful reaction. 

"Thanks for that," she said, bowing her head toward each spirit in turn. "Uhm... You don't want to  _hurt_ us, do you?"

That earned her another wet huff directly into her face, and Camry grimaced at the cold drops of snot she could feel splattered all over her skin. "Gross."

"C-Can we please go now, Camry?" Ari whimpered. The black cadejo was snuffling curiously up and down her leg, leaving goosebumps and saliva everywhere it touched her. "The-- The city is so close. You could teleport us away again."

Why wasn't Camry listening to her? She was so intrigued by the cadejos, and they were clearly showing an equal amount of interest in the two of them. This didn't make any sense after hearing everything the moons had told her, either! Wasn't one of these supposed to be a fearsome beast of the night, hellbent on mauling her and Cam to death, while the other was supposed to fight its twin off? These two were both acting like some random person's pets!

"Okay," Camry said after a long, silent pause. She readjusted her grip under Ariadna's thighs and turned slowly, maintaining her view of the cadejos for a beat longer than necessary. When she started walking again, with her eyes forward and the city in her sights, she couldn't tell if the cadejos were still with them or not. Part of her was afraid of being disappointed if she looked again and didn't see them anymore. 

"... They're gone," Ariadna reported once they were undeniably back in the city. "That was so weird. Camry, are you okay? Did you talk to them at all?" 

With little else to do, Camry nodded and immediately winced at the gasp that escaped her rider. "You what? You could have gone insane! Camry, are you-- do you feel any crazier than normal?" 

A head shake of "No" did little to curb the obvious nervousness singing through the older teen's veins. "Oh, no... Oh, no. We need to talk when we get back to the hotel." 

The rest of the trek back to their room was rather uneventful, especially when Camry turned herself and Ari invisible in order to avoid any more problems. What a book end their night would have if they were stopped and questioned by a policeman or harassed by an unsavory night prowler. When they got back to the right building, it was a cinch to sneak past the receptionist, who only spared the automatic door a cursory glance when it opened for nobody-- or so she thought.

Getting back into their room had to involve Camry's least favorite thing, which was going intangible and phasing through an opaque object. As the door opened to admit Ari, the taller girl accepted help with hobbling in on one foot. She sank into the mattress of their single bed gratefully and kicked up her injured leg to relieve the pressure. Camry switched on the bedside lamp and started to dig around in her backpack in search of the first aid kit she knew had to be hiding in there somewhere.

It was quiet in the room except for the rustles of supplies and clothes being pushed around. Then, without warning, Ari spoke.

"Why did you teleport us out into the middle of nowhere, Camry?" 

Hunched over the bag, Camry's shoulders drew in closer to herself. Guilt, as if it could manifest in a tangible form, was folding her in half. She had suspected the same thing herself, of course, but this wasn't quite how she had envisioned owning up to it.

Somehow, she had reacted in her sleep and teleported on instinct. Why? All she could remember of her dream had involved that laboratory and the scientists.

'I had to get away. I had to run. I had to--' 

A hand touched her shoulder, and her back straightened automatically. Camry couldn't breathe-- why couldn't she breathe? There were tears running down her cheeks, pooling in her lap, running down her neck-- the neck being cinched closed by those cables, those awful cables she couldn't break-- 

Ari wrenched her hand back and blinked back tears of her own, breathing hard as she returned from the past and to herself again. It all made sense now. A nightmare,  _of course!_  Camry must have reacted by using her ghost powers without thinking, and by being so close to Ari, she had taken the witch along for the trip. 

Now wasn't the time to think about that, though, since it was pretty obvious that Camry was having another panic attack. Ari lunged forward and leaned over the fallen girl, seizing her hands before they could rake all ten nails down her pale throat again. "Cam, I'm right here," she said softly, taking note of how harshly Camry's chest was rising and falling with her sobs. She drew her into sitting up and cradled her close, silently letting the scalding tears soak into her night shirt while her sprain whined underneath her. "I'm right here. It's okay. You're not back there. You're with me, Ari, in Mexico. Those doctors are a thousand miles away. You're safe. You're safe. 

"You're safe."

~

Dancing had given Camry more skills that she was rediscovering all the time, and wrapping a sprained ankle well was definitely one of them. About forty-five minutes later, with their feet washed and their scrapes treated and bandaged, Ari and Camry sat down on the sole bed in the room in relative silence. It had taken a good half of an hour to help bring Camry back from her panic attack, and another fifteen or so minutes to arrive where they were now. Seated closer to the foot of the bed so the lamp light hit all parts of her face, Camry didn't start talking right away. Ari leaned back against the headboard, a pillow propping up her aching lower back and another under her injured foot, and waited patiently. 

Finally, after switching back and forth between biting her lip and massaging her forearms repeatedly, Camry spoke. "I... didn't really talk about what happened to me in the laboratory. And no one really pressed me for details, so I was glad to not have to spell it out for everyone. But," She trailed off for a moment, which prompted Ari to gesture with one hand for her to continue. So far, she was fairly confident she was reading Camry's lips well enough to understand everything she was saying. 

" _But_ ," she started again, "it's been eating at me. Inside. I can't get rid of the memories of what they said to me, what they did to me, what they...  _promised_ they would do once the scans were over." 

"I think I heard those. In your memories," Ari said softly, and her stomach flipped when she saw how it made such terror light up in Camry's face. "I'm sorry-- I didn't really mean to hear anything when I touched you. I just... I can't believe that was all  _real_."

"They were... bad," was her hesitant agreement. "Since I wasn't human to them-- or, maybe they wouldn't have cared either way about that-- they just saw me as some kind of really interesting dissecting frog. I got strapped to their operating table for three days straight." A hiccup wracked through her chest, but she fought it down. "I tried to fight back, y'know? I tried to break out so many times, but they were ready for me." 

Ari's expression morphed into one of sadness as she watched how the other girl's lip was starting quiver. "Well, they are professionals..." 

"No kidding," Camry scoffed darkly. "And ever since I got captured, they would lead me around by those long cable pole things that they use to catch stray dogs. I  _still_ can't stop feeling like those are choking me." Her hand wandered up to the front of her neck and hovered without making contact. The pink marks that lingered there still stung ever so slightly from the residual salt of her tears.

'Well, that explains a couple things' Ari thought to herself. "I... I'm sorry, Camry. If I'd known that..." She let out a sudden, mournful sigh. "I just let you suffer by yourself, didn't I?"

"S'not your fault," she said, palming away at a tear that had only just leaked from her bloodshot eye. "I didn't say anything, so it's not like you  _could_ have known." 

Ari reached out then and beckoned for Camry to give her her hand. With the two of them loosely linked, Ari offered her a smile and said, "You know what?"

"No, what?" Camry sniffled.

"I knew you were reliable just from how much my brother  _always_ talked about you." Ari grinned at the embarrassment blooming like two pink flowers on Camry's cheeks. "So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I want to be there for you, too. You've been so focused on helping me all this time, even while you were struggling with these memories." 

She let go of her hand then and tapped her ear indicatively. "I may not be the best listener in the world--" Good, that got a giggle out of her. Mission accomplished, "but would you be okay with relying on me once in a while, too?" 

Camry gave her a watery smile in response and signed, "Yes," before saying, "I think I would be okay with that. Thank you, Ari."

"Any time, Cam." With that off their chests, Ari slid down under the covers and watched as Camry crawled over to her own side, being mindful not to press down on Ari's injured ankle. That still was quite the dilemma for their mission, but it was one they could wait until morning to address. It was time to sleep, even if the sun was slated to rise in just a couple of hours. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm having fun pushing these two closer together platonically. It's cool to go from them not really knowing one another at all to them relying on each other so much. What do you guys think? Please let me know in the comments!


	17. Welcome Committee

The talk with his father could have gone better, all things considered. As much as Dude wanted to fight back at every given moment on that plane, it wasn't like it could amount to anything good for either him or his mother. As the only non-magical person in the cabin, she suddenly became something of a hostage in his eyes, and the idea of any consequences befalling her for his actions only made Dude's stomach queasy. So, he sufficed with keeping his anger boiling just below the surface, only letting out steam when he spoke to Ricardo in a biting tone. 

Seeing the snapshots of his siblings had helped break some of the tension. Maybe Ricardo had packed so many in his wallet for this very occasion-- or maybe he just always had that many with him to pull out at the drop of a hat. The proud way he spoke of his other eleven children couldn't be anything short of genuine. 

Of course, there was no way Dude was going to be able to remember so many names and faces without actually meeting them in person! As the plane began its descent, his mind wandered to the approaching moments where he would first be introduced to his long-lost family. What were they going to be like? Would they accept him right away or be suspicious like he was of their shared father? Dread and anxiety started to mount, but the overwhelming excitement he couldn't help but lean towards was shockingly strong. 

At long last, the plane finally touched down on a private air strip. Ricardo rose from his seat to have a word with the pilot, though not before entreating his two companions to gather their things from above and get ready to disembark. "We still have a bit of a drive ahead," he explained, "but then we will finally be home."

Dude wanted to bite back, to resist the idea that he was actually "home," but held his tongue with a surprising amount of willpower. Instead, he resigned himself to pulling down his mother's luggage, then his own, and waiting by the cabin's departure door. What else was there to do?

They disembarked without incident and found a car waiting for them. Just like the plane, it also was clean but showed remnants of children inside: scratches in the leather seats, discoloration from markers and friction, and fingerprints on the inside of the windows were mainly what caught Dude's eye as Ricardo drove them down a country road in silence. Some part of the father wanted to turn on the radio and hope something upbeat would play, but he thought better of it and just let his son brood in silence. Maria was stoically poised in the passenger seat, where she watched with a nostalgic tilt to her lips and brow as the countryside flew by. 

"Should've made someone wait with the car," Ricardo murmured under his breath. This silence was deafening, and the thought that bringing along one of his other kids to give Dude someone to talk to was too brilliant to have been thought of while Ricardo had been in such a rush to retrieve his missing kids--  _kid_. 

Who would have been the right choice? It was hard to say since Ricardo knew next to nothing about what his son was like or what his interests were. 'Green hair, huh?' he thought, sparing a glance in the rear view mirror. Through its reflection, he could see Joaquín fiddling with the longer greens strands that hung just above his ear. 'AJ, then, maybe...

Around the thirty-minute mark, Ricardo had lost too much patience and broke the silence himself. "Well, this is awkward," he tried, but got little more than a breathy huff as a response. "So, we'll be back pretty soon. I wanted to warn you both about how... hectic the compound can be. Eleven kids, three moms, and your uncle and I all make for a pretty big bunch."

"Your house must be enormous," Marina commented without tearing her gaze off of the scenery. 

"Not especially," he replied smoothly. "We had multiple houses built to help give everyone enough space. I live in the main house with my brother, Elena-- my wife--, and our four. Camila and Jazmín run their own households as well, and Juana..." He trailed off for a moment to sigh, then continued with, "She decided she couldn't be "tied down" to the compound, so she only visits from time to time. We still have a house built for when she comes, but for now I think it would be best if you both stayed there. There are plenty of rooms, and I'm sure Laia and Lucas would appreciate the company." 

"They live in a house by themselves?" Marina said, lifting an eyebrow skeptically as she finally shifted her attention back to Ricardo. "How old are they?"

"They're both fifteen, but they might as well live in the other three houses for what little time they spend in their own." This, he recounted fondly as he thought about how often those two twins in particular spent time with their many siblings. "Everyone comes and goes pretty much at will." 

"Except for us," Dude muttered too quietly for his father to hear. Apparently this trend of snide and stubborn comments wasn't ending anytime soon. 

"How much longer until we get there?" Marina asked after a short pause in the conversation. It was hard to tell if it came from a place of anticipation or apprehension-- or a place with a little of both. 

"We're almost there. Just keep looking out the front window," Ricardo said with a twinge of mischief in his tone. "Mijo, you should watch, too. Covens put up a lot of safeguards around their territory, and ours is no exception." 

A country road stretched for miles ahead of them, ending across the horizon and disappearing from sight. What in the world was Ricardo talking about? There was nothing but brush and sparse grassland to be seen. 

Even so, as he reluctantly did as he was told, Dude could see a strange shimmer in the air. It reminded him of the way mirages always look on television. They were driving right toward it with such confidence, too. "Is that... energy?" Dude asked, leaning forward between the two front seats to get a better look. The tint on the windshield did little to obscure the rays waving in the air like light refracting onto the bottom of a filled pool. 

"Wow, I didn't expect you to be able to see it on your own, Joaquín," Ricardo said. "We keep our mountain under very heavy guard with a barrier and cloaking spells."

"Wait-- a  _mountain?_ " Dude echoed, incredulous. 

The energy in the air was all around their car, and then it was gone, replaced by a road that curved up along the very mountain Ricardo had mentioned. It was enormous, reaching higher than any skyscraper Dude or Marina had ever seen. A gorge bisected it into vastly unequal halves, the smaller half being closer and the one they were climbing. Their drive up ended at a lift station with a cable car ready to take them across the rocky divide. 

" _Holy_..." Joaquín breathed as he shut his car door behind him with a solid slam. He stared, unblinking, at the drop and the only way across it. The track looked strong, and the car only had about 40 or 50 yards to travel across. After that, the road resumed briefly before disappearing up into a forest that grew all the way to the top of the mountain. So high up, the wind felt amazing in contrast with the summer sun beating down on his head. 

"Let's go, mijo," Ricardo called as he worked to unpack the bags stowed in the back of the car. "Everyone's been waiting a long time to meet you."

Try as he did to maintain his sullen demeanor, Dude's natural tendencies to personify a ray of sunshine had their own way of fighting to the surface of his exterior. The ride across the ravine was peppered with questions about how big the coven compound was, and the drive up in a new car consisted of more questions about their family itself. The excitement in the air around Dude was all but tangible, infecting both of his parents to an extent as well. Then they arrived, and Dude was discovering just how wide his eyes could possibly grow.

The top of the mountain was a huge, flat plateau with a wall of stone and earth rising to a point framing the far side. Trees sprung up all the way to the plateau and bordered its edges, hemming it in with a comfortably isolated atmosphere. The infamous compound, as Ricardo referred to it, was well-tended and lush. Four houses stood as points on a compass around an enormous courtyard, and wide stone paths marked the ways to and fro among the buildings. Dude couldn't help how his eye was immediately drawn to the bubbling and splashing of a huge, ornate fountain that sat in the center of it all. 

To really tie everything together, a veritable mob of children waited impatiently with their mothers by the fountain. As the car pulled in closer, Joaquín could make out different pairs of twins, many of who were next to one another and talking excitedly. Remembering how his own sister wasn't with him sent a pang of loneliness through his heart. 

'She's not actually dead' he reminded himself quickly. 'Just make sure you pretend like she is. Don't screw this up, Dude.' 

Time seemed to slow to a crawl as they approached. Ricardo was waving to his family through the windshield, and then the car parked with a faint lurch. Dude felt himself reaching for the door handle inch by inch as suspense and trepidation built within his chest, filling his lungs and squeezing out whatever air he could get ahold of. This was it. He was finally meeting his other siblings.

The door opened and he climbed out, blinking at the bright sunlight flooding into the area. Ricardo must have gone around the back of the car when Dude was busy steeling his nerves, because when his vision cleared he was being all but escorted forward by his father. Marina got out as well but hung back by the car, watching the scene from a safer distance. She couldn't be sure what everyone was thinking about her, especially when she was the reason why Joaquín and Ariadna had been missing since their births. 

"Alright, everyone, I know you've been waiting for 'forever,'" Ricardo called out as he clapped a hand on his son's shoulder and guided him toward the watching group. Everyone had fallen silent as soon as Ricardo began to speak, so his voice easily carried over the shrinking distance. "I'd like you to meet your brother: Joaquín." 

It was like a dam had burst, admitting a flood of voices and hugs to sweep over the courtyard in a matter of milliseconds. The first to embrace him must have been an older brother, though he couldn't have been much more than a few months Joaquín's senior. He introduced himself as Ramón and then was gone, pushed aside so someone else could jump into the main spotlight. It was so overwhelming, so stimulating and loud and energetic-- it could not have been more perfect. 

He was asked so many questions, but there were too many to properly answer one at a time. A much younger sister, probably not quite even a preteen, pointed to his hair and then stabbed the same finger at another sister who also sported a forest-green head of dyed hair. "Same hair!" Joaquín laughed, which she echoed with a reserved smile.

"Same hair." 

Aside from the mob, the eldest tapped the back of his knuckles against Ricardo's arm to get his attention. Ricardo turned toward him and asked, "What is it, Caesar?"

Caesar, twin to Ramón, replied in a low whisper, "I thought he was a twin, too." 

"That's... complicated," Ricardo sighed before he clapped a hand on his son's shoulder. "I'll explain later. For now, just go make Joaquín feel welcome."

"Okay," Caesar said, though the way his pitch changed and how he drew out the second syllable made it clear that he wasn't entirely satisfied with that answer. He moved away to hover on the fringe of the cluster. From there, he could take in the sight of his full siblings, Thomas and Trinidad, bombarding Joaquín with questions about living in America. AJ and Olivia were busy whispering to one another, possibly about how AJ's dyed hair was almost the same color as their new brother's. Miguel skittered back and forth around one side of the group to look for a way into the excitement, but he wasn't having much luck. His twin, Terese, had quietly extracted herself from the fray to sit on the edge of the water fountain and lazily trail her fingers in the pool. 

Antonio, by far the youngest at the tender age of five, held back as well and clung to his mother's hand for comfort. Even as used to people as he was, the child wasn't sure about this new person, and his other siblings weren't making it easy to get close. Lucas had to butt his way in for a hug, which Joaquín happily gave to him while introducing himself. "You're gonna be staying with me and Laia in our house!" Lucas exclaimed as he pulled back and bounced up and down in the same place. 

"I know! I'm really excited about it," Joaquín replied. He adjusted the bag strap on his shoulder and looked out at everyone for a moment, taking in the unbridled curiosity and warmth his siblings positively  _radiated_. "God, it's-- it's so crazy to think you're all my family." 

"Welcome home, little bro!" Ramón crowed as he leaned on his twin's arm, causing Caesar to scoff before he pushed the other off. 

"Can we show you our rooms now?" Lucas asked. The chorus of agreements was nearly deafening as the younger kids began to argue over whose room Joaquín would get to see first, and Ricardo found himself stepping in to put the squabbling to rest. 

"Alright, that's enough," their father boomed, and the crowd fell silent once more. "Let Joaquín and his mother get settled in first, and then we'll  _all_ help give them a tour. Understood?"

"Yeah!" 

~~

As introductions finally started happening in a calmer manner, names and faces were beginning to stick in Dude's brain. His two older brothers were Caesar and Ramón, and they were twins born only about five months earlier than Joaquín and Ariadna. Ramón's conduit was tactile as well, which had delighted both boys to find out that they had something magical in common. As the two eldest, they both seemed rather cool and mature, though Ramón clearly wasn't so keen on acting the part all the time.

It was easy enough to remember who Laia and Lucas were since it was their house that Dude and Marina were staying in, so he was going to see them fairly regularly. These two fifteen-year-olds in particular were rather odd in relation to one another. As he would later learn, it all stemmed from the types of magic they both were prone to: Laia had an innate need for symmetry, but Lucas thrived on abstraction and mild chaos. It was little wonder that each twin had chosen rooms that were far apart inside their house.

Directly below Dude on the age line-up were AJ and Olivia, who lived in the west house with their mother, Jazmín. Both girls were sixteen and more than just a bit quirky, as Dude slowly began to realize throughout the tour of the compound. AJ especially gave off a very witch-y vibe with how her familiar, a short-haired tabby cat named Tarot, stuck like glue to her master's heel at every turn. She also made him promise to let her give him a tarot reading after dinner, "free of charge since it's a special occasion." 

Olivia seemed to have an endless supply of questions regarding his magic, too. Dude's familiars came as a shock to everyone when he brought them out, though that surprise morphed into delight when he used his extra arms to dole out more hugs. Apparently, a touch conduit really was rare; Ramón was the only other one in the huge coven to have it. 

At around the same age as Olivia and AJ were Miguel and Terese, both sixteen and quirky as hell. They occupied the east house with their mother and younger brother, Antonio. As the day wore on and he heard more and more about everyone's magic specializations, Dude found himself zoning in on the siblings with powers that he was more familiar with. 

"You're a pyro, huh?" Joaquín asked, intrigued by how Miguel had sneezed and blew out a burst of flame instead of mucus. 

"Ugh, yeah," Miguel sniffed. "My familiar is even a volcano rabbit. Wanna meet him?" 

"Sure!" Joaquín beamed at the round little ball of brown fur that appeared in his brother's hands all of a sudden. Its ears were small and stunted compared to most rabbits Dude had seen, but they swiveled toward him all the same. "Wow, he's cute! Does he have a name?"

"Ringo," Miguel said, proudly puffing up his chest a little. It was clear he wanted to say more as he postured up for his older brother, but Joaquín was quickly dragged away to come see yet  _another_ thing before Miguel could continue. Everyone was all but brawling for Dude's attention, pulling him this way and that in a never-ending game of tug of war. 

With five total pairs of twins, minus Ariadna, that left the three single-birth siblings: Thomas, Trinidad, and Antonio. Even at first glance, it was obvious that Thomas somehow took after Ricardo more than anyone else, and that fact was only strengthened when Dude was told that Thomas had the same specialization as their shared father. Trinidad was only ten and still very much a novice in her skill set, but she asserted herself boldly in refusing to be called any sort of nickname or looked down upon. Antonio was too young to have manifested his powers, though it was expected of him any day. His language skills hadn't developed yet either, so he only spoke Spanish with his five-year-old vocabulary.

When dinnertime was almost upon them, Ricardo bade his horde to go wash their hands, which finally gave Dude a few moments to breathe freely. He hung back from the bathroom to wait for his turn. 

"Well, mijo?" Ricardo said softly, leaning down a bit as he sidled up next to Joaquín. "You aren't overwhelmed by all of this, are you?" 

"It's... more than I'm used to," he replied tactfully. His father couldn't hold back a smile as he realized that his son's words lacked the bite they held during the trip across the border. "But it's exciting, too." 

"I'll be sure to help them realize you aren't quite adjusted to all the noise," Ricardo promised while standing up straight. "And you can talk to me whenever you need to. I told you that I'm also a therapist, right?" 

"What? You are?" He turned to shoot his father a quizzical look. "I didn't know that." 

"Oops," Ricardo laughed. "Well, now you know. Patient confidentiality, guaranteed. I want you to feel as comfortable as possible here, mijo. Don't be afraid to come and talk to me about anything."

Dude could only nod in answer. No one was in the nearest bathroom anymore, so he went in to wash up alone. Nearly all of the hot water was gone, he noticed somewhere in the back of his brain. Apparently, he would have to be quicker to make sure he didn't miss out. 

Dinner was even louder than the tour and introductions. Elena, Jazmín, and Camila insisted that they all be called Tía since that's what everyone else did if they weren't that specific woman's children. Though they made sure no food was flung about and no one chewed with their mouths open, they took the cafeteria-esque levels of volume in patient stride. The food was delicious and varied to help suit a range of tastes-- of course, everyone still had to eat their vegetables, no exceptions. Even at a magical table, some things would never change. 

"You  _gotta_  tell us about where you were living all this time!" Miguel demanded after forcing himself to swallow the final bite of grilled zucchini from his plate. "What was it like? Where was it?"

 Dude took a swig of his water and set down the glass carefully. He had already polished off his plate and was more or less waiting for someone else to leave the table first. "What, Bailey Lake? It's--" 

He froze as Caesar noisily choked on his own food halfway down the table. Ramón quickly stepped up to smack his twin on the back, but he was waved away when the eldest got his breath back. "You-- You lived  _where?_ " Caesar asked, leaning forward to better see Dude's reply. 

"Uhhh... Bailey Lake, Illinois?" he said again, this time with far less certainty. 

"Isn't that the place with the quarantine bubble from last year? 'Cause of that giant ghost attack?" 

Well,  _that_ got everyone's attention. Nearly all noise in the room came to a screeching halt as all eyes, opal or otherwise, were drawn to Dude's face. Wow, was it getting warmer, or was that just him? 'Is this how Cam feels every time someone talks to her?' he had to wonder as he swallowed a lump in his throat. 

"Oh,  _that_ whole thing?" He tried to laugh like it had been no big deal. "Pssh,  _please_. You're looking at a hardened member of the Resistance. Crom had every reason to hide himself in the lake with me on the team."

"How the hell did you  _survive_ that?" Miguel asked, awe lighting up every one of his features. "All those ghosts everywhere--!"

"Better not say any of their names out loud, mijos," Ricardo interjected quickly, his fork chopping off a bite-sized piece of his own zucchini. "Names hold power, especially for the undead." 

" _Well_ ," Dude began awkwardly, drawing out the word for several beats as he scratched the back of his neck. "To be honest... That whole situation would've been a lot worse if it hadn't been for Relle Phantom showing up. She--" 

"Joaquín, please," Ricardo interrupted. "The names."

"Oh, sorry," Dude said. "So, uh, yeah. I was there for all of that stuff. Really makes you rethink post-apocalyptic movies. And I didn't even know I was a witch at the time, too! So, no magic or anything. But I had a  _sick_ anti-ghost rifle for when I went out to shuttle supplies back to our base. There were about two hundred of us left..." 

He enthralled everyone at the table for a good fifteen minutes as he recounted his personal experiences in the middle of the supernatural siege on his home city. His captive audience had so many questions to ask, and for once he was able to ferry them in one at a time instead of trying to answer them all at once. It became clear within the first few minutes, however, that his own views on Relle Phantom did not line up whatsoever with the rest of his family's. 

"This really isn't the best topic for the dinner table," Tía Elena piped up during the briefest of lulls in the story. "Ghosts fighting ghosts-- it's all very interesting, but we shouldn't lose our appetites over something like this."

When the scant leftovers were stowed away in the fridge and the dishes were cleared from the table, Ricardo beckoned for Dude to follow him down a hallway and into what looked like a home office. He closed the door with a gentle click and turned to look at his son. 

"Mijo, I know that where you come from, ghosts like  _that_ one are celebrated, but here we do not speak of them," he began sternly. "It's too dangerous to give a ghost any power through our voices. We risk calling them to ourselves." 

"Relle is--" Ricardo cut him off with a hand held up, palm facing outward, "--  _She_ is at the other end of the continent," Dude countered. "What's there to worry about? Besides, she's not  _evil_. And they asked me about it! What else was I supposed to say?" 

"Just keep this kind of thing to yourself, Joaquín," Ricardo said. "I know with time you'll understand why we take the precautions that we do, but right now I need you to realize just how dangerous ghosts are to our people. It's not a matter I want you to take lightly. Alright?"

He so wanted to argue. The urge was simmering all the way to the tips of his hair, and yet Dude refrained. A small, rational part of him knew that wasn't the right way to start changing the minds of witches everywhere. "... Alright," he conceded, folding his arms over his chest. Some of that bite had returned to his voice, Ricardo was sad to note. "But what do you want me to say if anyone asks me about it? I don't want to  _lie_."

"They won't ask," Ricardo assured him. "Now, why don't you go unpack your things and get settled into your room? I'm sure everyone will let you pick a movie to watch, if you want." 

Dude left without another word, and Ricardo watched until the latch clicked shut once more. He sighed and reached into his pocket, pulling out a flat, black rectangle. Joaquín's phone had finally run out of battery, though Ricardo had shut it down well into the flight after its incessant buzzing nearly vibrated his leg off the seat. Whoever had been calling  _really_ wanted to get ahold of his son.

The dead device went into a desk drawer, which magically sealed itself upon being closed. Now no one would be able to take it back-- not that he expected any of his children to try and break into his office. Joaquín might if he had the right reasons, he admitted to himself. Still, the precautions were necessary in order to keep his family safe.

Well, to keep what was left of his family safe. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I missed being able to write all day long. What do you guys think? We've jumped back two weeks in time to finally get Dude's POV of the whole situation. I'll be giving him a bit of love for a couple of chapters, but don't think we'll be completely ignoring Cam and Ari!
> 
> I also would LOVE to hear your thoughts, so be sure to comment those as well! See you in the next chapter!


	18. Montage

One by one or in pairs, everyone gradually began breaking away to get ready for bed. Laia and Lucas eagerly went with their newest brother to their shared house, with Marina following a few paces behind. As swept up as he had been in the day's excitement, it was little wonder that Dude had yet to notice how his mother had hardly spoken a word since their arrival. 

Dude had chosen the bedroom next to his mother's, and their individual bags of belongings waited for them on their beds. The empty blankness of their unused rooms seemed to swallow them whole, demanding that they notice how out of place their presence was. As Dude unzipped his bag, he paused, letting his hands linger on the parted sides of the opening. Cast in shadow and staring back at him was a small framed photograph of his tiny family posing . Maria, at the time, looked like she was trying very hard to not look exhausted, but it would take more than a smile to hide how worn out she truly was. Ari smiled shyly, a hand on her brother's arm as it was thrown around her shoulders. She threw up a peace sign as well, awkward and timid but clearly enjoying the attention. And there was Dude himself, pulling everyone together with enough enthusiasm to fuel a dozen summer camps for decades. 

The sound of shuffling footsteps met his ears, and Dude wrenched his gaze off the photo and to the threshold of his new room. His mother hesitated in the doorway, her expression awash with something difficult to discern. "Mijo..." she said in a quiet voice. "What... What are you thinking about?"

He looked away then and zipped up the duffel bag. "I'm thinking about how wrong this feels, Mamá," he replied, making sure to keep his volume low in case Laia or Lucas was near enough to overhear. "It seems so great here, but... I can't trust it. Any of it. It's too  _perfect_. Just like-- Just like with Kordelle and his coven."

Dude felt horror flash in his throat when his voice caught on the admission. He hadn't meant to say it out loud, but the betrayal was too fresh in his mind, even after two whole months. Everyone had been so welcoming back then as well, enveloping him into their home with open arms and hidden agendas. No matter how gorgeous the mountain was, or how incredibly accepting his half-siblings were, he couldn't shake off the sense of déjà vu ringing in the back of his brain. 

And no matter how they spun the story, Joaquín and Marina were not in Mexico of their own accord. 

They had still been kidnapped.

"I... have to agree," Marina said as she stepped into the room and put a comforting hand on his upper arm. "I don't know what we should do, either. Your father wants you here, to reunite you with the rest of your family." 

"How can it be 'the rest' without Ari here?" he asked suddenly, and his muscles tensed under his mother's touch. "Besides, we didn't  _want_ to come here in the first place. He took us!"

"Mijo, shhh," Marina hissed quickly, and he backed down immediately.

"I know," he said, wincing at his own tone. "I just... I don't know what to do, either. We can't go back across the border without our passports, but those are all the way in Bailey Lake. No money, no transportation, and no cell phones to call for anyone." 

What's more, he didn't have any of his contacts memorized, so he couldn't call the Dowells  _or_ the Mahadeos whether he found a phone or not. "I  _hate_ feeling like we're stuck." 

"So do I," Marina said. When she opened her arms, her son fell into them readily and hugged back. "It's part of why I left Mexico with you two in the first place. For now..."

She trailed off, and he pulled themselves apart to look into her face. "For now?" 

"For now," she tried again, "we are going to stay here. Don't rock the boat. Don't bring up ghosts or other things that might upset your father. I do want you to have a good relationship with your siblings, too. It's not their fault that circumstances are like this for us." 

"Sure, sure," he agreed quickly, nodding along. "Did I... make the right choice, though?" 

"What do you mean?" 

He looked down at the floor-- carpeted, he noticed-- and let out a heavy breath. "What I told him, back at the apartment. About her." 

Marina squinted, blinked, and then formed an 'o' with her lips. "Oh, you mean-- Well, I think you did. She wouldn't have liked such a noisy place, I would think."

"True." 

~

"... wouldn't have liked such a noisy place, I would think." 

Laia furrowed her brow as she pressed herself carefully against the wall next to the open door of her brother's room. When she had heard voices on the way to the bathroom she liked to use, she turned and started to walk away, but her curiosity had been piqued the moment she heard Joaquín say something about the compound being too "perfect." 'What does he mean by that?' she had wondered while making sure she could hear without being spotted through the open doorway. 

He wanted to go back to America? He felt stuck? An ugly feeling twisted itself a new home in the deepest chambers of her beating heart. Laia looked down at her bare feet and noted how her straight brown hair falling on either side of her face ended with perfectly even edges, just how she liked it. Did her brother not actually like her or their siblings? Had the personality he put up for everyone so far been just a façade? 

"True." 

She heard them start to move then, their feet making soft sounds on the carpet, and she scurried off on tip-toes back the way she had come. Why did it hurt so much inside to hear it? She barely even knew him, and yet it felt like a punch to her airways anyway. 

Laia found herself in the living room, where her twin was happily rearranging the furniture to better accommodate four people-- or maybe he was doing it because he knew how his tastes were so incongruous with her own and he wanted to bug her. Lucas looked up upon her arrival and grinned, his lips taking on a mischievous tilt. "Hey, Lai, help me with the other end, would ya?" 

She blew past him without a word and barely even acknowledged that she had heard him at all. Setting down the edge of the couch, Lucas leaned against it and watched her go. His expression was puzzled. "What's the matter with you?" 

When Laia returned a moment later, she wore shoes in addition to her pajamas and carried the main pillow from her bed. "I'm having a sleepover with AJ and Olivia," she announced as she reached the front door.

"But Dad said we should stay here tonight so the house isn't so empty," Lucas tried to argue as he started after her. 

"Then  _you_ stay," she spat. The door slammed behind her, and Lucas gave up his pursuit with a huff. 

 "What is  _with_ her?"

The door slamming had summoned both Marina and Joaquín into the living room to see what the matter was. All Lucas could do was shrug and say, "I have no idea what her problem is. Hey, wanna play Smash with me?"

"Uh, hell  _yeah_ I do," Joaquín answered emphatically. Marina left down the hallway again, probably to start unpacking her own duffel bags in her room. 

Lucas pumped his fist in the air and started to lift up the couch from one end again. "Help me get this over there." 

"Over where?" Joaquín asked as he put his own hands in position to pick up the other end. For a second he wondered if he ought to bring out his familiars for the extra muscle power, but upon lifting the couch it became clear he wouldn't need them. 

Lucas motioned with his head to his left, Joaquín's right. "Over there." 

"Gotcha." 

And just like that, two weeks went by in the blink of an eye. 

He gradually got to know his brothers and sisters little by little and found ways in which to bond with each of them on a personal level. Lucas made it a point for the two of them to play some kind of video game most nights, and it only took a few sessions for Joaquín, a novice in most gaming circles, to start winning without needing extra handicaps. There was something about Lucas's magic, a specialization that had been dubbed "Abstraction," that gave him an edge in finding unexpected and creative ways to win, so Joaquín's victories were still few and far between.

"You ran off before I could give you that tarot reading," AJ complained on his second day in the compound. "Want to after dinner? For real this time?" 

"That sounds good. I've never had a tarot reading before. Is it  _spooky~?_ " he asked, stretching out the last word comically. 

AJ shoved his arm with her shoulder and sent him a look somewhere between irritated and amused. "Shut up, it is not. And just for that, you're only getting the three-card reading." 

"Aww, AJ! C'mon, I was just pushing your buttons," he laughed. "By the way, what dye do you use for your hair? It looks so good!" 

"This stuff?" she said, stretching out a lock of her long hair and twisting it around her index finger. "I make it. Doesn't fade, only grows out when your roots come in." 

" _No_ ," Joaquín whispered, his eyes round as he stared. "That's amazing, AJ! You've  _gotta_ show me some time."  

"How about I just dye your hair for you?" she suggested, smiling hopefully. "Yours is sorta fading, it looks like. My stuff doesn't need bleaching, either."

"Yeah, definitely!"

That's how, many hours later, he found himself sitting on the floor in AJ's room. A green-stained towel was wrapped around his hair, which had her homemade dye seeping all the way down into his roots. Directly across from him sat AJ, looking very pleased with herself as she shuffled her tarot deck. It looked like it was in great condition, though slight blemishes on the corners and edges made it clear it was well-loved and used often. The deck's theme was elegant with roses and thorny golden stems that reflected the overhead light with almost every angle. 

"There, does this look "spooky~" to you?" AJ snickered as she sent an indicative look around her room. With all the KPop posters adorning her walls and the dozens of places for her familiar to lounge as she pleased, this was without a doubt the least spooky place in the entire compound. 

"Alright, you got me there," Joaquín conceded. "But can you blame me? Literally all I know about tarot comes from TV--  _American_ TV."

She couldn't help but wince at that. "Yikes. Well, let me be the first to open your eyes about tarot. My specialization is called Probability, so I can see a bit into likely outcomes of the future. I get really lucky a lot of the time, too, but that's besides the point." AJ cut the deck and flipped it around, putting half upside down on top of the stack. "It lends a hand in giving readings."

"That's... really cool," he admitted softly, his eyes wide as he took in the sight of her manipulating the cards with such practiced ease. "What happens first?"

"I'm going to spread these out in front of you, and you're going to pick out three cards. Doesn't have to be three that touch, doesn't have to be spaced out either. Just let them call to you, and choose." 

She did as she said, laying out a spread of options that held all kinds of mysteries. Joaquín let his hand hover over the array for a moment, and then shifted to his left to pick up two cards nestled together. The third one came from the other end of the line, and he passed them to AJ to be placed down between him and her. With that done, he looked to her for an explanation on how the reading would continue. 

"This card is your past, marking out how you have dealt with life's obstacles and trials," she said, indicating the card to his right, her left. All three faced the same way, she noted silently, and were toward her. With a mischievous smile, AJ reached for the first card slowly, drawing out the tension for an unnecessary few more seconds just to get a reaction out of her brother. Joaquín groaned and leaned forward, staring intently at her hand. "Your past isn't going anywhere, you know."

"Come  _ooon_ ," he whined. 

"Alright, alright," AJ giggled, turning over the card. She sat back and put her thumb to her chin in thought when she saw the picture looking back up at her. "The Page of Cups, huh...?" 

"What does that one mean?" Joaquín asked quickly. 

"Well, the upright Page of Cups means a lot of things: the beginning of a big, new project and an abundance of creative energy come to mind first," she began. As she spoke, she watched his face carefully for clues to what he was thinking. So far, he was entirely intrigued and quite possibly trying to think of ways in which such a reading fit with his actual recent history. "Synchronicity and intuition are also a big factor in this, too. You have a good connection with your instincts, don't you." 

The way she said made it more of a statement than a question. "I guess I do," he said while resting his elbows on his knees and placing his chin in both of his open hands. "It's definitely helped me in the past to listen to my instincts." 

'Would've been  _nice_ if they could've warned me about Kordelle a little sooner, too...' 

"See? Spooky enough for you yet?" 

"You're never going to let me live that down, are you."

"My Probability is telling me... No," she laughed, and then flipped over the second of the line-up. "This is the present for you.  _And_ you got The Fool."

"That doesn't sound good," Joaquín said while blinking multiple times at the revealed card. 

"Oh, no, it's really not," AJ was quick to assure him. "The Fool is the first in the major arcana, and he's the protagonist of the Fool's Journey. He's upright here, which means fulfilling your highest potential and, well, finding renewal. He represents new goals and how anything can happen. With that in relation to your present state, I guess it can mean you're at the beginning of your next adventure." 

She smiled at him then, and he reciprocated with a grin of his own. "You mean with how I'm back with all of you guys now?" he asked knowingly.

"Maybe-- probably," AJ answered. "Remember, this type of reading is just a way of advising how you look at your life. It's not like the cards are ordering you with how you need to act from now until the end of time." 

Joaquín nodded without lifting his chin from his hands. "Gotcha. I'm a fool right now, but a good fool." 

AJ stuck her tongue out at him for that. "You know that's not what it means." 

"C'mooon, what's the future card say?"

"Here," she said, flipping over the final card and nodding to herself. "Oh, and before I say what this one means, I feel like I need to tell you again that this isn't some kind of prediction about your future. This is  _advice_ on how to move forward and look at how things happen around you and to you."

He tilted his head then to try and read the upside-down name on the card. "Okay, yeah-- Strength? Which one is that?" 

"Upright Strength kinda means exactly like what it sounds like," AJ said while gesturing to the robed woman and docile lion featured amidst the ring of roses that bordered the card's edges. "Having courage and a compassionate outlook toward others will serve you well in the near future. This has more to do with inner strength than anything physical, though."

"Ohhh," Joaquín murmured, once again leaning forward over the small spread. "Okay, so like-- I should-- I gotcha, I gotcha. Cool! Being true to myself, and all that. Good thing I've had plenty of practice with that kind of thing already."

As AJ packed up her cards and slid them into a neat stack, she spoke with authority, "Alright, your first reading is free, but I'm gonna have to start charging you for any more in the future."

"You at least offer the friends and family discount, right?" he joked, grinning cheekily. "Help a poor guy out, Sis!"

"Literally  _who else_  am I giving readings out to?" she snickered. "You get the discount of being given a reading by an  _actual_ witch. Now, c'mon, we should probably rinse out your hair before the dye dries and becomes one with your scalp."

"You didn't say  _anything_ about something like that happening," Joaquín, aghast, said as he clapped a hand to his chest, feigning over the top distress and betrayal. He got up to follow her into the bathroom down the hall. Upon reaching their destination, he couldn't help but wince at the sight of so much green goop staining the floor.

And the counter tops.

And the sink.

And, soon, the tub. 

This was definitely AJ's own personal bathroom, since there was no way anyone else could have left so many multicolored splotches on so many surfaces of such a small room. The dark green she currently sported was likely just the most recent of her adventures into the realm of hair-dyeing. 

What a coincidence that it just so happened to be the exact same shade of green that Dude had grown fond of since the near-apocalypse Crom Cruach had caused in Bailey Lake. 

~

"Hey, Joaquín. Bro, hey.  _Heyyy_."

The dark of his second night among the Narváez family had been peaceful and still for a grand total of three hours. Apparently, three hours was asking for too much.

Joaquín groaned from deep in his chest and rolled over, peeking through one eye's lashes to see three faces staring back at him intently. "Uuugh, whaaat..." he asked in the flattest voice he had ever used. 

"Dude, get outta bed and come with us," Miguel said in a chipper tone, though he still struggled to keep his volume low so as not to wake up the other three sleeping in the house. "We got something to show you~"

The use of his long-time nickname, as unintentional as it had been, definitely startled him a bit more awake as nostalgia sprang up from the corners of his mind. He sat up and blinked dully at Miguel, Caesar, and Ramón in turn. "... Whuh?"

"Just get dressed already, would ya?" Ramón pleaded. "We wanna show you something cool, but you gotta come outside with us."

"It'll be an adventure!" Miguel pressed a little too loudly, and Caesar shushed him sharply. "Sorry..."

Somehow, what AJ had said during his tarot reading floated back to Joaquín's sleep-addled brain.  _"I guess it can mean you're at the beginning of your next adventure."_

"... Okay, just go and give me a sec. What are we doing, exactly?" he asked before throwing off the covers and swinging his feet down onto the carpeted floor. 

"It's a surprise," was all Caesar would say, and the other two kept their lips zipped up tight. "Don't worry-- it'll be fun."

All the secrecy was really starting to grate on his tired nerves, but Joaquín simply grit his teeth and pulled on the pants and shirt he had been wearing the day before. The neck of his T-shirt was still stained green in a handful of places, but he shrugged that off as he pulled his head through and fixed the wrinkled hem. Wearing shoes and wishing he had his navy blue jacket from back home to throw on, he met up with the three boys waiting impatiently for him on the front porch.

He eased the door to latch quietly behind him, and Joaquín turned to face his brothers. "Okay, I'm ready. Where are we going?" 

It was then that he noticed the messenger bag Caesar carried over one shoulder. The edges of what were probably cardboard boxes strained through the canvas sides. "Does  _that_ have anything to do with it?" 

"You'll see, little bro," Caesar assured him, a cocky grin on his face. "C'mon, we wanna show you a cool spot to hang out." 

They started with a stroll off the main property in a cluster and headed toward where the treeline was grew together the thickest. "Well, it's  _our_ cool spot to hang out," Miguel corrected him quickly from Joaquín's left. "We aren't really supposed to come here in the middle of the night, but it's the best place for what we're gonna do."

"You really wanna keep me in the dark about this until we get there, don't you," Joaquín assumed. In return, all three of them grinned at him. "Fine, fine, have it your way. I can be patient."

 As they walked down a narrow footpath that wound like a serpent through the trees, their chattering voices rose up toward the starry sky and mingled with the cool mountain winds. Finally, after a good ten minutes of winding back and forth down a steep slope peppered with shrubs and chunky boulders, the forest leveled out into a plateau. A clearing appeared before them a moment later, and at the furthest end of said clearing was a huge oblong hole in the ground. Miguel motioned for Joaquín to join their group at the rim while Caesar set down the bag to open it.

"Okay, guys, promise me one thing right now: this isn't some weird hazing ritual, right?" Joaquín asked as his gaze darted among his three brothers and the inky darkness that lay just inches below their feet. 

"Dude,  _relax_ ," Ramón laughed while motioning with both hands in sync. "We brought you here to set off fireworks in the well, okay?"

"Yeah, Dad  _hates_ it when we have these, but I'm great at making 'em outta spare stuff from the workshops," Miguel boasted, proudly puffing out his chest. "We hide 'em in old snack boxes until we have enough to bring out here."

True to his word, the packages Caesar withdrew were clearly branded with logos for cookies and crackers, but when he opened them all Joaquín saw were little shapes wrapped in colorful tissue paper and stuck with short fuses. "You're kidding me," he murmured, then said louder, "You  _made_ these? These look so dope, Miguel!"

"Just wait 'til you light 'em and throw 'em down there!" he cackled in answer. 

Of course, they gave him the honors of throwing the first one in. Miguel offered his thumb out like a lighter and conjured a candle's worth of flame on it without so much as a twitch. The fuse was lit, and Joaquín waited a tense second before letting the stick go over the precipice. Its tumbling glow all but winked out of view only to be replaced almost immediately by a deafening  _BOOM_ and a spinning ring of pink, yellow, and blue sparks. 

The deep well walls helped muffle the sound and prevent any forest fires in the dry summer heat. Still, crouching at the edge and staring down with delight, all four boys couldn't be deterred in taking delight with the controlled explosions going off just below their feet. The moons watched over them from above, taking silent and careful note within the annuls of time. 

~*~

"Cam?" 

Walking a few feet ahead and looking down at the giant map she tried to wrangle on her own, Camry perked up at her name being called and turned. Her hands came together, bringing the sides of the map flush against each other. "Yeah?" 

"I really gotta ask you something about that whole  _thing_ last night," Ariadna said. She lifted an eyebrow at how her companion maintained her normal walking speed while moving backwards-- a gutsy move when they were strolling next to a river with brightly-colored rental canoes lined up along the paved docks. 

"Go for it," Camry replied, still walking backwards as she watched Ari's face for any changes in expression. 

"You don't feel weird or anything, do you? Not like those, uh, dogs did anything to you?" she asked carefully, making sure to speak more or less in code for the sake of any eavesdroppers who might recognize the Spanish word she had almost said instead. There were plenty of tourists everywhere, and the smart local salespeople were sure to be where the foot traffic was. Just up ahead, the middle-aged man who clearly owned the canoes peddled his river tours to anyone who would listen. 

"No, I'm totally fine," Cam assured her both vocally and in sign language. "Why?" 

"I just can't shake how  _weird_ that all was," Ari admitted while adjusting her backpack straps. "I can barely wrap my head around-- Oh, my god, look out!" 

Before either girl could stop it from happening, Camry's heel banged against a neon orange canoe and her shoe slipped off the top of the few stairs that led right down into the water. She shrieked, throwing her hands and the map into the air as she tumbled into the canoe's bench. Gravity was apparently not her friend that day; the momentum and weight of her heavy pack caused the canoe to bounce its way down to the water, where it floated out on the river before anyone on land could catch her.

"Agh!" Camry yelled, a pile of limbs sticking haphazardly out of the canoe's 'cockpit.' 

With a sigh, Ari turned to the stunned tour guide and asked in flat Spanish, "How much for a rescue tour?"

"Ariii! I can't swiiim!" 

 

\--------------------------------------------------

These dorks... I love them so much.

You know the drill by now! Comment and vote if it fancies you, and please let me know your thoughts on the story so far! I'm really excited to develop the sibling relationships within the Narváez kids-- that's Ricardo's last name, if you didn't catch that. I'll be drawing from my own experiences with estranged siblings to help flesh this out, so that'll be interesting!

Also, check it out! In case any of you were curious about exactly what Ari looks like, minus the opalescence in her eyes, I got you covered. Scruffyturtles is an amazing artist on tumblr, and I commissioned him to draw a character reference sheet for Ari:

     

He did such a great job with capturing her range of emotions, especially her short rope of patience for dealing with people who bother her. Be sure to check him out if you wanna see more of his art! Some of it can be nsfw, so be prepared for that. 

See you in the next chapter!

(Also yes I know I usually would put that in an end note but you can't put pics in the end notes as far as I know sooo eh.)


	19. Shenaniganery

"Give it back! I had it first!"

"You snooze, you lose, sucker!" 

He was only a week into his new life, and Dude was already starting to feel his nerves fraying with the strain of maintaining his cool. All his life, he had been the youngest kid: his twin sister was older by several minutes, and his mother was the only other person in their tight family. He was almost tempted to consider Saoirse and Camry to be family, though he wouldn't for a couple of very specific reasons, but their relationship dynamic didn't really require him to act like the oldest or the most mature of their trio. Honestly, the shenanigans the three of them got up to usually were either his or Camry's doing, with Saoirse being dragged along as the voice of reason. 

Now, surrounded by so many younger brothers and sisters, he couldn't help but feel out of his element. He was so used to being the one that provided the noise and energy to his surroundings, but there was already so much around him. Add any more, and he would start to feel like he was being driven crazy. 

"I'm telling Mamá!" Trinidad screeched at her brother as he ran off with whatever it was they had been fighting over. 

"Go ahead! It'll be gone by then!" Thomas called back triumphantly, waving the object in the air without pause. It didn't even matter what the treasure was, and at that point Joaquín didn't really want to get involved. 

Fights like this tended to break out everywhere he looked. If the argument wasn't between twins trying to settle their differences-- or, let's face it, their similarities-- then younger kids were annoying their older siblings to the point of getting yelled at or chased away. So much yelling, so much roughhousing, so much tattling... Dear god, was this what  _all_ families with kids were like?

If he was being honest, Dude missed using sign language to win an argument with his sister. There was something very satisfying with the feeling of his hands flying to create the words he needed, and as their arguments grew more intense their body language would speak volumes for them. That was something their mother couldn't hear, so there was no risk of being caught fighting as long as they made up before she noticed. 

And if he was still being honest, he missed his sister. A lot. As the days passed him by, Dude watched countless arguments break out and then get resolved. Once normalcy returned, the closeness of all of his half-siblings was paraded around in front of him no matter where he went. When he caught a glimpse of Caesar and Ramón huddled together over a spell book in the living room, or when AJ and Olivia passed him by on their way to set up together in the tool shed to work on one of Olivia's construction projects, Dude's heart squeezed painfully in his chest. Even if they were just lying on top of each other, reading their own books in a puppy pile or browsing the internet on their outdated electronics, he and Ari had their ways of spending time together. 

By the end of his first day with his extended family, the news about Ariadna's "death" had gotten around to everyone. Though no one came up to him with the express purpose of sharing their condolences, it was obvious that they felt sorry for him when he caught them looking from afar. He was a twin without a twin, severed from the one friend who had been there at his side since birth. In a family with four other pairs of twins, it was little wonder that he was something of an oddity. 

It wasn't quite the same, but being invited along to drop fireworks into natural wells or to play along in his younger siblings' games helped in distracting him from his separation. Of course, being invited into the thick of things also presented him with more than enough fodder for a month's worth of headaches. 

"Joaquín!  _Heeey!_ " 

As fast as his rabbit familiar, and almost as agile, Miguel dashed right up to his older brother and started to hop up and down. His face positively  _screamed_ excitement. "Guess what, guess what, guess what!"

"What, what, what?" Joaquín replied to play along.

"We're having a football tournament! C'mon, you gotta be there for when we pick teams." On that note, Miguel snatched Joaquín's hand and dragged him out the door, where the usual mob of children slowly began to congregate in the courtyard. Ramón had climbed up on top of the fountain's tiers and was lying on his stomach, letting the water drench him while it struggled to escape the outlet pipe pinned underneath him. His magical specialization was with water, after all, so it made perfect sense that he was right at home while soaking wet. 

Caesar stood on the rim of the fountain's bottom pool and looked to be trying to persuade his twin to come down, but it clearly wasn't working as Ramón just smirked and kept quiet. He kicked his legs back and forth in the air behind himself without a care in the world. 

"... you planning on picking teams from up there?" Caesar was in the middle of asking Ramón skeptically when Miguel and Joaquín drew close enough to hear. 

"Sounds like a plan to me," he laughed in response. "And who's gonna stop me, anyway?" 

"Whatever," Caesar sighed before he jumped back onto the ground. Ramón stuck his tongue out at his twin's turned back and sent a conspiratorial wink at Miguel and Joaquín so far below. "Oh, good, you found him. Okay, as soon as Laia finds Terese, we can start picking teams."

"You ever played football back in the States, Joaquín?" Ramón called down. 

Dude barely suppressed a laugh and shook his head. "Hell no. You think my mom would let me try out for something as dangerous as that? Those helmets don't do shit for brain injuries."

"Uhh...?" Miguel and Caesar intoned in unison while sharing a look. Without warning, Ramón burst out laughing and let his head hang forward as he shook it side to side. 

"Oh, my god, you are being so American right now." Joaquín felt a heat of shame rise in his cheeks at AJ's comment. As if materialized from thin air, she sidled up next to him and grinned impishly. "Remember? This is Mexico.  _Mexico_. We're talking about soccer."

"The  _real_ football, thank you very much," Caesar chimed in quickly. "Ever played that before?"

"Uh, no, actually," Joaquín admitted. His tone was far more subdued than before, and it didn't go unnoticed. 

AJ gave his arm a friendly push and looked to Caesar. "So, you and Ramón are captains again?"

"You guys are  _always_ captains!" a new voice complained as she approached their growing group huddle. Laia and Terese had returned, but the latter had been the one to speak. "Let someone else be captains for once in your lives!"

In response to that, Ramón performed his best impression of a fountain spigot and spat an arc of water down onto Terese's head. She shrieked and pointed her finger at him, then shouted a spell in a language that Joaquín didn't recognize. Ramón ducked his head down, but it didn't do him any good in stopping the tidal wave that bubbled up out of the bottom pool and swept him off of the top tier. Now sitting up on his elbows and drenched from head to toe, he glared at Terese from over the lip of the basin. 

"If you look up the word "overkill" in the dictionary, all you'll find is a picture of your face," he said. 

"You know how Refraction works," she sassed right back. "It doesn't take much for me to turn it around and kick your--"

"Enough, you two, enough," Caesar, the only 'adult' figure on the scene, piped up before another fight could break out. "Fine, Terese, we'll let someone else be captain today. Joaquín, how 'bout it?"

At that, he held up both hands in a "No, thank you" sort of pose and shook his head. "Bruh, I legit just said I've never played. You do  _not_ want me picking teams."

"Ha, alright. Just thought I'd offer. Who wants to choose?"

Of course, Terese was quick to volunteer as tribute, and with some encouragement Miguel stepped up to face off against his sister. With a quick coin toss, she was granted the right to choose first. Before the splitting could begin, however, Miguel got everyone's attention by waving a hand in the air. "Are we allowed to use magic this time?" 

"Uh,  _duh_. Why wouldn't we be?" Olivia answered with her arms folded over her chest. 

"Well, we should probably try to restrain ourselves if we're allowed to use any at all. It's not like we're all expert football players-- or witches, for that matter," Miguel pointed out. By his tone and careful choice of words, it was clear he was trying very hard to be tactful and not point out any single person more than another. Even so, it was impossibly to miss what he was implying, and Dude glanced up at the sky out of quiet frustration. Apparently it was his lot in life to always be at least one step behind the people around him, especially when it came to magical prowess. 

"That's a good point," Ramón agreed. "Split up the teams first, and then we'll call it out if one team is too stacked. No animal sidekick familiars, either. And I swear, Olivia, if you summon your hammer during a game  _one more time_ , you will be banned from playing football with us ever again."

"No one got hurt!" Olivia whined. A sudden, sharp cough from AJ at her side immediately cowed Olivia, who backed down and mumbled, "For very long..." 

"Only because of me," Laia boasted. She stood proud, puffing her chest out and assuming a starry smile. 

"Come  _ooon_ , just pick already," Miguel groaned. He shuffled his weight from foot to foot, obviously itching to get started. Terese, quite clearly pleased that she had won the right to picking first, used a keen, narrow eye to scan the crowd of faces looking back at her. She went over it once, twice, and after getting an impatient shove in the arm from her twin, settled on her choice: "Ramón."

"Caesar!" Miguel said immediately, and the two eldest went their separate ways. 

"Lucas," Terese said. 

Suddenly, Miguel turned roughly forty-five degrees and zeroed in on the person everyone expected to be picked last. "Joaquín." 

Said older teen shrugged and walked to the right to join his brothers. "It's your funeral, man." 

Terese had the next name on the tip of her tongue when she paused and turned to see her twin and Joaquín whispering to each other behind their hands. Caesar leaned in as well, curious as he had ever been. "What're you guys talking about over there?" she demanded to know. 

At that, Joaquín's black opal eyes widened before smiling in a silent laugh, and their trio grinned at the opposing team with the epitome of mischief written clear as day across their faces. "Wouldn't  _you_ like to know," Miguel shot back impishly. 

"Whatever." She rolled her eyes and said, "Thomas!"

"Olivia," Miguel said. 

"Trinidad!"

"AJ."

"And I am sitting this one out," Laia announced before either team could begin to wonder what to do about their odd numbers. "Referee and medic. I get the feeling you'll be needing me for that."

"Good call," Caesar agreed. "Goals are in their usual places. I think we're pretty evenly matched, so let's go!" 

He may not have ever played football-- soccer, as his brain kept telling him, no matter what-- before, but it wasn't like he didn't know a  _little_ bit about it. There was a goalie on each team, and the players would manipulate the ball across the field to score using some fancy footwork. 'I wonder if I can borrow what I learned from Cam's dance lessons' Joaquín had initially thought, but that was before he got his ingenious assignment from Miguel. 

"You're a genius, by the way," Joaquín said under his breath as he followed Miguel and the rest of his team to their side of the field. Their goal posts consisted of a lonely fence post with no fencing attached to it and a tree that grew at the edge of the oblong clearing. 

"Just make sure you don't bring 'em out until you're sure you'll need 'em," Miguel advised him. The compliment brought out a sunny glow to his eyes, which, Joaquín noted, were dark pinfire opal up to the edge of his pupil and gave his irises the look of a brilliant night sky. "This is gonna be the best advantage  _ever_." 

"Well, just don't get your hopes up  _too_  high," he added with a note of caution. "No matter what, I'm still a noob."

When both teams were done huddling to discuss strategies, Laia brought out the ball and made sure everyone was ready in their positions. The tension in the air was palpable, even from where Dude stood furthest from the center of the impending action. Laia tossed the ball into the air, and just like that the field was a blur of motion and shouting. 

Soccer games weren't really Dude's cup of tea, and he had never really understood the rare events when his mother took a night to herself to watch a big game at their Brazilian neighbors' apartment on the ground floor. Just like with school sports, he didn't care for the hype surrounding it like a judgmental atmosphere. That was why he had taken such a shine to parkour, which was as solitary as he chose and had no restrictions or expectations from anyone. 

Watching his siblings tussle on the grass and fight for the ball, however, seemed to awaken a strange and new type of boiling in his blood. When Ramón managed a feint on Olivia and AJ that sent them toppling into one another, Joaquín's horrified, " _Oooh!_ " and sucked-in gasp was somehow as elated as it was concerned. This was  _exciting!_

The two girls picked themselves up without injury and rushed after Ramón as he made an attempt to approach the goal. Miguel was on him like a clingy cat, stubbornly refusing to let him skirt too wide and find a clear path. Trinidad, goalkeeper for the other team, called out support at the top of her lungs from all the way across the field. 

"Go go go  _gooo!_ "

Caesar wasn't about to let Lucas or Ramón through either, and with a masterful feint followed by charging Ramón, he spun the ball out of his twin's possession and started racing back in the other direction. Ramón let out an indignant yell and skidded to a halt, only to trip when Olivia sidled up next to him and stuck her toes out just enough to catch on the front of his running shoe. The way she giggled as he went down couldn't have been anything short of revenge-fueled catharsis. 

Way across the field, Caesar approached the goal and dodged Lucas' bold attempt to steal the ball for himself. After a quick feint to throw off Trinidad's lunge, the first goal was in the bag! Everyone on Miguel's team cheered at the top of their lungs, filling the huge space with their celebrating voices. Caesar took a graceful bow as Trinidad hurled the ball back into play over his head. 

As the game progressed, it became clear that the teams, while fairly evenly matched up to make the game as interesting as possible, had their strengths and weaknesses to prey upon. Lucas, an artistic type with not a lot of muscle on his bones, remained as defense to back up Trinidad, the youngest among them and therefore the slowest runner. It made sense to stick her in the goal box. Ramón was a show-off and played up his smooth tricks in order to distract and maneuver without getting blocked, but Caesar seemed like the only one who could accurately predict those moves and find a way through them. If they had been on the same team, their advantage would have been unbeatable. 

Thomas was whip-fast for only being eleven, so it seemed to fall on Olivia and AJ to guard against him. They had to be careful and work together in order to make sure he couldn't sneak past them, which still happened from time to time. On top of that, Olivia had a knack for deconstructing the opposing team's strategies within seconds of seeing it in action, and she could adjust to compensate for it. AJ seemed to have luck on her side in multiple instances where she found herself dribbling the ball through unguarded terrain or managed to kick the ball between her siblings' legs and right into the goal. Terese herself didn't have much bulk to her frame, so her speed and capacity to block were less than ideal, but her ability to score goals with complex trajectories made her a treasure to be guarded all the way into enemy territory. 

Of course, that was where Joaquín's secret upper hand literally came into play.

The goals were defined horizontally, but vertically they stretched up as high as anyone wanted. As long as the ball passed between the two markers, the goal counted. The first couple of goals scored against Miguel's team only happened because Joaquín couldn't jump high enough to block the ball, so a quick look and nod from Miguel and Caesar told him that it was time. 

"Coming in!" Ramón called as a taunt, his feet a blur of dribbling and kicking up grass beneath himself. Joaquín flexed and opened his fingers in preparation, crouching low and staying on his toes. There was the kick-- it was high! He launched up as far as his legs would take him and let his familiars shoot out of his shoulders. Their noodle-like connections to his body were stronger and thicker than he remembered, not to mention more opaquely skin-colored than he had ever seen them. Both hands wrapped around the ball and brought it down to chest-level so he could grab it with his original, real hands. 

The open-mouthed gapes of everyone staring were enough to make him grin devilishly. "What? Aren't familiars allowed?" he asked, knowing full well that they had all agreed it was allowed. 

" _Ohhh_ \--!" Terese gasped. She turned to point an accusing index finger at her twin, who was starting to drop down on the grass with the force of his laughter. "Oh, you little--! You planned this from the start!"

"Heads up!" Joaquín called out, then chucked the ball as far as he could down the field. 

~*~ 

Nothing obviously bad had happened after their run-in with the cadejos, but after Camry's fall into the tour canoe and Ari's ongoing battle with her sprained ankle, it started to seem like they might have been cursed rather than blessed by the wandering spirits. With their backpacks heavy on their burnt shoulders and their water bottles depressingly hollow, both girls rolled into Cuencamé, Durango, two days after their unexpected jaunt down the Nazas River. The sun was approaching the horizon at an agonizingly slow pace which gradually turned the sky into a wide range of colors. 

Brightly colored decorations had been strung across the eaves of houses and storefronts alike, and mariachi music, though faint, echoed in the distance close to the center of town. It looked like a festival of some kind was going on, so Ari and Cam weren't quite so out of place where they sat down on a bench to rest their aching feet. Ari massaged her ankle through its temporary brace as well; they had had to take an extra morning off of their mission in order to go out and buy something that Ari could use to walk while she healed. The thought still didn't sit well with Camry, whose nearly life-long dancing career had made her all too familiar with the dangers of putting stress on injuries, but Ari both figuratively and literally would not hear a word of her well-meant warnings. 

"We  _really_ should take it easy for a little longer--"

"I'm gonna shut my eyes if you keep saying that, Cam," Ari threatened, and with that the matter was more or less settled.

There wasn't enough time to try and press onward to the next city, so Cuencamé was shaping up to be their rest stop for the night. The festival, the name of which still escaped both girls as they explored the twilight streets, was clearly something a lot of people went to; all of the motel and hotel rooms were booked solid! Ari sent her friend a withering look when she read the frowning lips of the receptionist stationed at the last hotel they could find in the city. Camry didn't need a direct translation to understand what they were hearing. No dice. 

After a little more walking, they found themselves sitting at the edge of a plaza. The mariachi band Camry had heard earlier was set up in the center, so she had no trouble listening to their lively music. It was so lively, in fact, that Ari had to repeat herself in order to be heard.

"Huh-- w-what?" Camry jerked into sitting upright and turned to face Ari. 

Instead of being miffed, Ari smirked. "Are they really that good? Lost in the music?" 

"Sorry, I-- I'm tired, so I'm drifting off a little," she apologized. "What did you say?" 

"I was just saying how I  _really_ don't want to sleep outside again," Ari groaned. "That first night wasn't fun, and I am  _not_ setting up shop in another cemetery."

Camry shook her head rapidly at that. "Hell no. I'm not putting you through that again. Maybe we can find some place that's abandoned... A shelter, or a youth hostel. This town isn't too small to not have those, right?" When just saying it didn't quite get her message across, Camry signed as best she could and found she could almost replicate her ideas word for word, though not without spelling out a few things. 

"Oh-- Maybe?" Ari shrugged off her backpack and reclined against it. 

"How's your ankle?" The question came a bit out of the blue, especially since Camry had taken a pause to stare out at the small crowds that had flocked around the mariachi band. People had started to dance, both in styles that were more traditional and a touch more updated for the modern century. Her foot had begun to tap of its own accord, and she was already envisioning the kinds of steps and flourishes Madame Descouteaux would have taught her to go along with the beat. 

"It's better than I expected," Ari replied. "Why?"

Camry shed her own pack and shifted onto her feet in a rather fluid motion before turning and extending a hand down to her companion. "May I have this dance, señorita?"

Ari's white opal eyes stared back and forth between the offered hand and the scarred face beaming hopefully down at her. Then she sputtered with laughter and tossed her head back. One hand massaged the bridge of her nose as she sucked in a powerful breath, her giggles abating. "Are you seriously asking me to dance? I've never danced in my  _life!_  How can you when you can't even hear the music?" 

When she finally looked back at Camry, she could see that the blonde was as determined as ever. "We are two random teenage girls backpacking through a foreign country together. Literally  _who_ is going to judge us for dancing to the music?"

"I think you're asking the wrong girl, chica," Ari laughed. A hot blush from more than just the sun's merciless rays had taken up residence across her face. "I definitely can't dance." 

" _Pleeease?_ "Camry begged while putting her palms together. The "chica" part hadn't even registered as a blip on her radar; apparently, there were now two people who could call her that. "I'll help you! It could be fun! You never know." 

Ari wavered on the precipice of her decision, letting her gaze roam across the dancers and musicians they were centered around. Their faces were definitely alight with happiness as they moved... But they could hear what they were dancing to! Ari couldn't! It would be so easy for her to make a fool of herself and not even know it.

Still, Camry really seemed to have heart set on the idea of the two of them dancing. After steeling her guts and setting her expression, Ari met Camry's eye and nodded, putting out a hand to be helped up. Camry gasped and all but yanked the taller girl to her feet, all the while bouncing up and down with excitement. "This is gonna be so fun, Ari!"

"What are we going to do about our backpacks while we're out there?" Ari piped up quickly. In answer, Camry grabbed both by their straps and hauled them further from the plaza's edge to prop them up against the front wall of an open restaurant. Right under the window, they would be perfectly safe from thieves. Cam ran back to Ari and snagged her hand on the way past to lead her closer to the music. 

Facing each other, Ari stood awkwardly, unsure of what to do with her free arm or her feet. "So... What should I do first?" 

Camry grinned and held up their connected hands. "Take a deep breath in and let it out slowly." When that was done, she nodded. "Good. Okay, I know you can't hear the tempo, so we're gonna make up our own. Ready?" 

"Um, no. But do it anyway."

"Perfect answer," Camry giggled. Loosely grasping Ari by the hand, she started to step in a circle, leading Ari to do the same without breaking their face-to-face set-up. The going was slow at first, but once she got the hang of moving her feet in a rhythm, they started to mix it up a little. They reversed directions to walk, and then broke their hand contact to move their arms in smooth arcs and quicker snaps. It was an odd way to play follow the leader, but it didn't take long for something of a smile to start tugging up the corners of Ari's lips. 

The deal was sealed when Camry made a bold leap forward and twirled Ari around like she was  a ballerina. Even though Ari was taller by a good few inches, she still spun on instinct with her hand raised high above her head. When she slowed to a stop, the starstruck look in her eye was undeniably adorable and had Camry grinning as wide as possible. 

"Do that again," Ari whispered, and her dance partner was happy to oblige. 

They left the crowds behind a little while later, content to ignore the eyes of anyone who glanced their way. The smiles on their faces were like two stars in the night sky, and their laughter could have been music of their own. With a quiet, shallow gasp, Cam found herself being pulled in for a firm hug and heard Ari say in a breathy voice, "Thanks for teaching me, Camry."

Camry returned the embrace as Ari continued, "I don't know how I never realized that I could just dance without the music. It was really fun."

They pulled apart so Camry could reply. She smiled and signed "You're welcome," without bothering to say it out loud in tandem. Though she had already known that particular sign well before their adventure, she couldn't help but feel like using it was a perfect way to show how Camry herself wasn't the only one imparting new skills. Then, she added, "You know, teaching your brother started out a lot like that, too. You could be onstage with a little work!"

Ari snorted like that and shook her head. "No way, you loco. I did like what I heard of your practices, though."

"What do you mean?" Camry asked, an eyebrow lifted curiously. 

"The guest room I used at your house-- it was your practice place, wasn't it?" Ari said. "I could hear the history in there at night sometimes. It sounded like you two were having a lot of fun together. I liked the music you chose, too." 

"Oh!" Her lips formed a tall "O" as she understood. "Your magic--  _duh!_  Yeah, yeah, we did have a lot of fun practicing. He was... surprisingly fast at learning everything I taught him." 

She trailed off there, lost in thought at the memories pulled out of the depths of her brain. There had definitely been a period, however brief, where things had been awkward and wooden, but all it took were a couple of trips onto one another that broke down the tension and let them move in united rhythm. Camry remembered how exhilarating it had been to finally get their showstopping maneuver right. With blood rushing to her head while he held her all but upside down, she had felt so secure and elated in Dude's arms. True, he had nearly lost his grip and almost dropped her when they froze for a second too long in their stunned state, but the emotions hadn't gone away with the adrenaline-- in fact, it only seemed to amplify them in the moment. 

And, after all, nothing had ever brought them quite so close as flopping on the floor, tangled together just a little bit and breathlessly laughing with a mixture of relief and delight. Camry could remember how she propped herself up on her elbows and beamed at him back then. "You did it! I knew you could do it!" 

He lunged to hug her then, lifting her off her elbows and into sitting while he knelt on the floor. 'God, what I wouldn't give to get a hug like that from him again.' 

"-- are our bags?" 

The shriek broke through her daydreaming and shattered it in an instant. The mariachi music, festival decorations, and twilight sky all returned with whiplash to her mind's eye. Only a few paces ahead was Ari, who stared at the very empty spot where Camry had definitely dropped their backpacks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH SHIT Y'ALL 
> 
> SO MUCH IS GOING ON IN THIS CHAPTER OOOOOH I CAN'T WAIT FOR YOU TO SEE WHAT COMES NEXT!
> 
> Please leave your comments down below, and I look forward to posting the next chapter sometime soon!


	20. Playing Catch-Up

Their bags were gone. They were  _gone!_  All of their food, clothes, survival supplies, money, and the spell book-- it was all in those two backpacks! Panic swelled like a balloon in Camry's lungs, cutting off the oxygen to her brain even as her short breaths came in hyperventilating pants. "Oh god oh no oh my fucking je--" 

"Cam, we gotta find them!" Ari yelled. She placed her hands on the shorter girl's shoulders and made her look right in her opal eyes. "C'mon, do your thing and let's go!"

Her hyperventilating didn't really slow down, but like a switch flipping she was suddenly starting to think more clearly. Right, they couldn't just let those thieves get away with their stuff. She also couldn't go ghost, though; the last thing they needed was for word to get out that Relle Phantom had escaped to Mexico. Camry nodded and grabbed Ari's hand, then took off around the side of the restaurant she had leaned their packs against. 

The lights from the festival grew dimmer and more dispersed as they ran down the cobblestone alleyway. Once the crowds were long gone and the vanished sun's shadows gave them plenty of cover, Camry pushed a surge of energy through herself and Ari, turning them both invisible so she could start to climb higher with her tiles. 

"We can't split up-- what's the plan?" Ari asked quickly, her voice an octave higher than usual. Even with the easy warm-up of dancing down in the plaza, her ankle protested beneath her with every footfall.

Camry stopped running and turned to look back at the girl that only she could see. "We're gonna run and look for signs of pickpockets. Your bag is yellow, so it's easier to spot. Keep an eye out for it."

"I'll try to keep up," Ari promised, to which Cam smiled. 

"You have so far. C'mon!"

Their higher altitude gave them a better view of the city's layout while the festival had done more than its fair share in lighting up the main streets well past nightfall. It didn't really make sense for someone who had stolen something to stick close to the light, so that narrowed down the possible places to check. Camry could feel her blood boiling hotter and hotter in her veins as her anxiety mounted. Her nerves were as taut as steel bridge cables. Ari's hand in hers was slick with sweat, but she held on with a mighty grip and fought to match Camry's pace as they ran somewhere around three stories aboveground. 

A wide stone bridge that jumped over a creek caught Ari's eye as she ran, and for the briefest of seconds she glanced down at it. Its shadows were deep, but with the water dried up it would be the perfect hiding place for any number of thieves. Still, she wasn't about to mention it to Camry until something else caught her eye: what looked like a huge book was suddenly tossed aside and skidded along the dirt until it rested in plain sight. The dim light made it hard to tell if the pages looked yellowed or not, but Ari felt her heart stop when Camry started to pull her away from the bridge.

"Wait, wait!" Ari yelled, and Cam screeched to a halt. "Over there! Under the bridge!"

"Okay, hang on," Camry said. She suddenly scooped up Ari bridal-style and angled her tiles down into a ramp. Still on her feet, she skated all the way to the ground and glared into the wind blowing past her face. She set Ari back down when they had reached the paved footpath that went over the bridge, then motioned for her to be quiet. They jumped down into the creek bed, no longer invisible or holding hands, and flattened themselves against a wall while Camry listened. Though she didn't know it, Ari winced and fought back a groan when she landed her jump; the impact sent shock waves all up her leg and lit a fire in her ankle. The creek's banks were man-made and rose up to about waist level to guide the missing water through; if the same was true on the other side of the bridge, then the thieves would be forced to go in only one of two directions to escape. Their chances of escape were slim.

As Camry's pulse pounding in her ears faded to a dull roar, the shriek of zippers being wrenched open too quickly reached her. There were voices, more or less young and mixed in terms of gender, speaking in hushed but aggravated tones. Then someone gasped and said something that Camry couldn't translate, but it sounded happy enough to be some kind of victory. Unidentifiable objects clattered noisily and scraped across the ground. 

She turned to look back over her shoulder and nodded. "I think we found them," she mouthed.

"What do we do?" Ari asked out loud. 

Camry flinched at the sound of her voice echoing down into the dark tunnel, and the voices of the thieves immediately cut themselves off inside. "Oh, fuck," she hissed under her breath. With a quick motion for Ari to stay where she was, Camry spun into view at the mouth of the darkness and whipped her phone out of her back pocket. The flashlight feature burst to life and she aimed the beam down the tunnel, taking on a confidently wide stance in the meantime. 

"Alright, I know you stole our backpacks! Give them back now or else!" she yelled, her free hand balled into a fist and planted firmly against her hip. She hadn't gotten into too many fights where she was outnumbered before, especially against humans, but this couldn't be any harder than fighting actual  _ghosts_. 

The three perps in question flinched back at the blindingly bright light, and more than one let out a string of curses under their breath. Somewhere in the back of her brain, Camry couldn't help but be pleased that she knew most of them already. "No trouble, okay? Just give back our stuff," she tried to no avail.

Nearly every item stashed in the packs had been tossed out and scattered in the dirt: all of their clothes, toiletries, charging devices, and outdoor items lay at the group's feet. It would seem that the thieves had taken a special interest in the wallets, food, and medical supplies since they had begun to put them back in the backpacks for their get-away. The two boys looked to be younger than twenty while the girl was probably about twenty or twenty-one. Much to Camry's surprise, not a single one looked homeless or starving if the state of their hair, skin, clothes, and bodies said anything. What the hell? These little twerps were doing this for shits and giggles.

The two boys started to talk at the same time, and their tones were nothing short of amused as they clearly jeered at the little blonde "gringa" standing bravely all by herself. Though she didn't catch most of it, she definitely made out the words "bitch," "tourist," "stupid," and "against all of us?" 

"No hablo español, pero--" Cam started to say, and then let just a touch of her otherworldly side show through her eyes as she shifted their color to a dangerous, glowing sphalerite, "Drop our things and leave.  _Now_."

The fist on her hip shifted off and she popped her thumb up, almost like she was hitchhiking without really trying. A little spurt of flame no bigger than what a lighter would produce flared into being from the tip of her thumbnail. Hopefully by standing behind her phone's light, the shadow would disguise the fact that she wasn't actually holding a lighter. 

All three pairs of eyes were definitely drawn toward the flame, but they didn't exactly care about it and shrugged it off immediately. What was one little lighter going to do against all of them? The boy closest to her started to talk in a calm, condescending tone-- he was probably advising her to just turn around and walk away. Of course, that wasn't an option if she and Ari wanted to make it through to the end of their mission. He drew himself up to his full height and began to walk toward her, keeping his hands open and out in front of himself. 

"Shit," Camry spat, and her eyes dropped to the ground around her in search of something she could use as a weapon. If only she could go ghost and use her powers! Taking back their stuff would be a piece of cake!

At the feet of the older girl lay the barely used can of bug spray that Ari had preemptively thrown into her grocery basket more than two weeks ago. When Cam's eyes fell onto it, then onto her "lighter," an idea popped into her brain. Of course! But if she could only reach it without having to run past Señor Grabby first...

She took a step back to recover some of the distance he had closed, but it didn't do much. He was taller, so his legs were longer and he clearly had a bad intent egging him on. Still pressed against the wall, Ari gasped when he stepped into view. Camry, by no small miracle, maintained her glare and stared hard at the can of bug spray. 'Just have to get it. How do I get to it? Can't use my powers in front of them, can't--!' 

Camry's muscles stiffened as the can started to roll toward her without any prompting. It hadn't been pushed or even nudged, but the sound of its metallic body grinding over the dirt and pebbles was unmistakable. "How in the hell--?" she started to mutter, and that's when the boy was only inches away from being able to grab her. 

Her heart skipped a beat as she realized how she had stopped moving back the moment she became distracted. She took a stuttering breath and opened her hand to flex it; was she going to have to start brawling? Before she could close her hand to make a fist, something cold and smooth smacked into her palm. Her finger found the release valve, and she was holding it up with her "lighter" in front of the nozzle. Cam didn't even register how her phone clattered to the ground, forgotten for the time being. 

"Back. Up," she growled, and the boy stopped in his tracks. He stared with wide, confused eyes. Honestly, she was just as confused as he was, but that was for another time and place. "Back up!" When he didn't move, she swiveled her aim to the left and pressed down on the can's nozzle. A jet of fire erupted like a small flamethrower, filling the air with the caustic scent of burnt chemicals and toxins. 

The thief immediately started to backpedal, and the other two looked to be preparing for a quick exit out the other end of the tunnel. The pillaged backpacks were on the ground and their hands were up in the air, but Camry could tell by how their feet were shuffling that they were gearing up to run. 

She leveled a firm glare at all three and said in her scariest voice, " ** _¡Corre!_** " before spitting out another cyclone of fire. The girl shrieked, her voice echoing down the short tunnel, and fled with her figurative tail between her legs. Both boys shared a frightened look and didn't need to be told twice; they were running after her only a second later. 

When all three were well out of sight and definitely not coming back, Camry unlocked her iron grip on the can and tossed it away like she had just seen an enormous bug on it. "How the  _fuck_ did I do that?" she yelled, her voice briefly echoing through the darkness. Moving stiffly, she skirted around the bug spray and crouched down to start scooping up their things and shoving them into the dirt-streaked backpacks. 

"Camry?" Ari said softly as she came around the corner and leaned against it for support. Her bad ankle was lifted above the ground and a sheen of cold sweat on her forehead glistened in the moonslight. "Here, let me help." 

She picked up the spell book first and foremost, then took a moment to leaf through it to make sure it was intact. The spine had taken a nasty blow thanks to the thieves throwing it across the ground, so the front half of its pages now hung loose and almost completely detached from the binding. Ari was careful to close it and set it inside the bottom of her bag before padding around it with the dusty clothes Camry handed back to her. 

There was little point in asking her any questions about what had just happened-- the inexplicable appearance of telekinesis certainly was first in line for both of them-- as they were shrouded in the steep darkness of the tunnel at nightfall. Now that they were alone, Camry had no problem with calling on her abilities to conjure some fire for each of them to see by. The self-contained flames glowed a natural red-orange where they hovered at waist-level next to the arching stone wall. 

Ari didn't hear it, but when she straightened up from her crouch to relieve some of the weight on her ankle, she got a clear view of Camry frantically digging through the side pockets of her silver-and-cyan backpack. Dread slammed into her gut as she realized exactly what Camry was trying to find: she usually stashed her wallet in one of those pockets.

"Son of a bitch!" Camry cursed, throwing the bag down at her feet. Her eyes were sphalerite again, undulating with the same angry light as her conjured flames. "No  _wonder_ they were so quick to leave!" 

She took off through the tunnel then, her arms pumping at her sides until a desperate call stopped her in her tracks. " _Don't you dare leave me like this!_ " Ari cried out from where she once again leaned against the wall for support. She was hunched over her raised leg and gripping her ankle over the brace while her other palm pressed against the dry stone between two balls of fire. 

Camry skidded and turned, putting her hands out to her sides as she spoke. "A-Ari, I have to-- I might still be able to catch them if I--!"

"Don't!" Ari insisted. When she inclined her head so Camry could see her face, she saw that Ari had closed her eyes from the pain. Her responses were so quick, though. Was she using her magic to listen to the present? "Please, just don't! I can't run anymore--  _O-Oww!_ \-- a-and you can't just leave me here!"

Even as the urge to fight pulsed through her, Camry found herself unable to take another step away from Ari in that moment. The terror in her voice was so real, so palpable and  _familiar_. Cam sucked in a deep breath, then exhaled a cloud of smoke and ash before turning back. She first made Ari sit down and give her ankle a real rest while everything salvageable was gathered up. As much as she loathed to admit it, Ari was right: after losing her mother and twin brother, the last thing she needed was to be abandoned by the one friendly face she had left. 

Even if it meant that they were now homeless and destitute in a foreign country, Ari and Cam were not losing sight of one another. She begrudgingly plucked up the discarded bracelet that Avery had modified and chucked it into her open backpack with a grunt. 

Bearing a bag on each shoulder, Camry knelt down and began to help Ari up. As they creaked into standing, Ari murmured an apologetic, "I'm sorry," and looked away. Was she afraid of what Camry would say? In response, she offered her shorter shoulder as a crutch for the taller girl to lean on and made sure to walk slowly. 

"It's okay," she said, her tone mellow and sincere. "You're right. I shouldn't have tried to split up. We're staying together."

~*~

The ink had long since washed away, leaving only the faintest of semi-permanent shadows on his forearm. That message, the dream, his suspicions-- they were all real and correct. His sister and best friend were coming to find him and his mother. How long did they have until they managed to land in the right spot? 

Was it even possible for them to find him? This mountain was so well hidden from anyone who didn't know exactly where to look!

Joaquín paced back and forth across the carpet in his bedroom, expertly dodging the dirty clothes he had yet to pick up. 'If I could just call them' he griped silently, kneading his palm with his other thumb as his thoughts ran wild. 'What would I even tell them, though? "Go back?" "Come here?" "Drop Ari off at X place and Camry turn back now?" Ugh, Mom! This is the  _worst_ timing!'

As much as he wanted to stay in his room and think over what he could do about this new predicament, Joaquín knew that wasn't the right course of action. His siblings had definitely become suspicious of how cagey he had become in the two days since he had had that prophetic dream. He could only hope they would chalk it up to some kind of separation anxiety since the dream just happened to coincide with his mother's departure on a short trip back to her home town. 'The last thing I need is Dad breathing down my neck 'cuz he's worried I'm not adjusting.' 

When the front door finally,  _finally_ clicked open and Marina walked through it, Joaquín had had enough of how his skin crawled with endless nervous energy. He all but threw aside the spell book he had been leafing through without actually reading and ran around the back of the couch to hug her. Marina, surprisingly sullen after her brief absence, gasped at the sudden affection and patted his back while returning the embrace. "What's the matter, mijo?" she asked while leaning back to look him in the eye. 

"I need to talk to you," he said in a low whisper while nodding to the hallway where their adjacent rooms were. "Like, right now."

"Okay," she agreed. Marina reached back to grab the handle of her duffel bag and blinked when her son beat her to it. He was gone around the corner in a flash, obviously too wired to wait a second longer than he had to. With a sigh, Marina followed after him into her room and closed the door behind her. 

"What's going on?" she tried to ask, but the answer cut her off far too quickly for her to finish.

"Mamá, they're on their way here. They're trying to find us," he blurted out. "She told me to try and call her, but I have no idea how to do that! We don't have a phone-- I don't even know her  _number!_ "

Marina put both hands in the air, palms aimed toward the ceiling, in confusion. "What are you talking about? Who's on her way here? And how did this person contact you if we're both hidden all the way up here?"

Joaquín sank down on the edge of her plush mattress and started to explain how he had seen Ariadna and Camry asleep in a hotel room together. Their backpacks had been nearby, and not even the dim light he had been able to see by could have disguised their tanning sunburns. They were traveling somewhere sunny and at least partially by foot. Ari's eyes, completely frosted over with white light and wide open in sleep, had made it clear that magic was somehow involved. "And when I woke up from it, there was writing on my arm," he said with a gesture toward the spot where the tingles still ghosted over his skin. "'We are coming, call Cam now.' They're in Mexico, Mom! What do we do?" 

Marina stared ahead of herself, zeroing in on a blank patch of the cream-colored wall. Her room was still so bare, almost exactly the same as it had been when she first moved in. The framed picture of her and her two children was the most homely thing in sight. "I... I don't know. Do you hate it here, Joaquín?"

The question had clearly been unexpected; he tensed and bit his lower lip for half of a moment. "I... don't 'hate' it here. It's fun, and my siblings are all awesome. I get to learn magic and not worry about ghosts attacking. I just don't feel at home here." 

"I know you miss her, Joaquín," Marina said softly. "Maybe it's time we come clean about her to your father. I'm starting to think she would have liked to be here, too." 

He shot to his feet and turned to face her head-on. "What? How  _mad_ do you think he would be if we just told him that? God, I-- I would be so  _pissed_ if--" 

"Mijo, I  _know_ ," she interrupted him gently, "but maybe we made a mistake. My memories of what happened with your father don't add up anymore, especially now that I've seen this place and this family for myself. Do you still have your doubts?" 

"Of course I do," he grumbled with his arms crossed. "I don't think I'm ever not going to have my doubts. But..." Joaquín trailed off and cupped his chin with one hand, covering his lips as he thought intently. "If we wait... until after our birthday. Yeah. That gives us a couple of weeks to figure it out for sure." 

"Is that what you want to do?" Marina asked, a stern note to her voice. He nodded once, his hand still over his mouth and chin while his opal eyes burned holes into the floor. "Okay. But you've given yourself a deadline, so you need to stick to it. Is that clear?" 

Joaquín nodded once more, humming his affirmation in sync this time. "I got it, Mamá. I feel a lot better now that I've got that off my chest. How, uh, how was visiting your parents?" By how he hesitated with the question, it was evident he was somewhat dreading the answer. 

Marina sighed and slumped forward, pressing her forearms against the top of her thighs. "They weren't there. I actually have no idea where they've gone. For all I know, they're in a completely different state-- or  _country_ , maybe!" Her loose hair tumbled forward and down her shoulders. When she hung her head, the shadows swallowed her face and dejected expression.

The bed dipped down next to her. Joaquín, not entirely sure of what to do, sufficed with wrapping an arm around her shoulders and resting his cheek on top of his own extended arm.   
"I'm sorry, Mamá..."

She straightened her back at that and patted his knee. "It's alright, mijito. I'm almost relieved, in a way. That would have been a very long and painful conversation to get through. Closure would have been nice, though." 

"Do you want Dad to try and find them for you?" he asked. "I'll bet he knows how."

"No, that's alright," Marina replied with a shake of her head. "Maybe sometime later, but not now."

"'Kay." He rose and left then, but not before planting a peck on the side of her head. There was no telling just how hard it had been for her to put herself out there, especially when she couldn't have possibly predicted what reaction her family would have upon seeing her again after almost twenty years of complete silence. He shut the door softly behind himself and turned toward the living room, where the distinct sounds of video games were coming from.

Though he didn't know it, Marina watched him go with a smile on her face and a full feeling in her heart. She couldn't have possibly explained how she managed to do it, but there was no doubt in her mind that he had been raised right. Her parents would have been won over by her son's innate kindness in a heartbeat, no matter what they thought of Marina or her choices. And as for Ari, Marina was sure that she would impress them with her intelligence and wit. She did want her children to meet their grandparents one day, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna cut this chappie off there before this gets too long. What do you guys think so far? I'm trying to stick to a more regular updating schedule, but stuff loves to get in the way of that >:( Still, things are heating up as everyone is finally starting get on the same page. 
> 
> What will happen next? Find out the next time I get my act together and WRITE!


	21. DIY

With the relentless sheets of rain pounding away at the tin roof above her head, it was a miracle that Avery could work on her many projects, let alone hear her own thoughts. Her new lab's location wasn't in any way ideal as it was all too visible from the closest main road and farther from her apartment than she cared to drive, but it was all she had. It would have to do until the unease from the government simmered down enough for her to move again. A high profile ghost prisoner wasn't inexplicably lost from inside a secure facility every day, and tensions were high everywhere because of Relle's disappearance. Avery could feel a thousand invisible eyes boring holes into her from every angle no matter where she went. 

It was all she could do not to scream when the buzzer linked to the mechanized lock on the door activated. 

All of a sudden, the sounds from outside came pouring in at top volume. The storm had picked up again, and full orchestras of thunder rolled in across the sky every few minutes. Fat, warm drops of rain splashed down in torrents and had soaked through the hijab of the girl who had opened the door with her own slick fingerprint. Avery's heart raced in her chest even as she recognized who had walked in and was forcing the door shut behind herself. 

"I cannot  _believe_ how hard it is to do my job in this kind of weather!" Saoirse griped. She was careful to remove the plastic cover around her digital camera and set the device down before wringing out the ends of her yellow hijab. Thin streams of water were eked out from every bend in the fabric, and after a moment she gave up with a grumble and just hung the entire thing up to dry next to one of the space heaters scattered around the small shed. 

With that taken care of, she moved on to wringing out her long hair and sent Avery an amused look. "What's with that face? Did I startle you?"

At that, Avery regained control of her jaw and breathing. "Oh, uh, yeah, a little bit. Sorry, I'm just not used to people coming into my lab. Kinda thought you were the feds." 

Saoirse frowned and shook her head. "Nope, not this time. Besides, they're too busy wrangling all these new ghosts to be worried about us." She plunked herself down in her pink task chair and spun around a couple of times, craning her head back as far as possible the entire time while she groaned. "There are so  _many!_  What could possibly be bringing them all here anyway?"

"I've got a few theories," Avery said. Without rising from her own seat, she wheeled across the mats laid out over the concrete floor and came to a quick stop at a white board that had been propped up against the far wall. 

Their work space was small, to say the least, as it now had two somewhat distinct areas with their own supplies to fill them. Several white boards had been hung around the shed for the purpose of scribbling down whatever flashes of inspiration hit either one of them while they worked. A large table sat in the center of the room and was covered in scavenged machinery, circuitry, and countless other mechanical odds and ends for tinkering and experimentation. Avery's gigantic, old computers were stacked up in a pile near the door, and rolls of blueprints had been shoved into the crevices between like bottles in some sort of scrappy wine rack. 

Avery's own work space was much more streamlined than before with big dated labels on everything and clear places for her tools to go. A notebook on her desk was where she kept a log of her projects, which she had given names and START/FINISH dates as she developed them. After so many years of working on things as her inspiration struck, it was a pleasantly productive change of pace to keep things so much more organized than she had ever been. 

Saoirse had an area for herself as well, though it wasn't quite as large as Avery's. She didn't need a lot of room for her to work on her own projects. Her desktop tower and monitor from home took up most of her desk, and what room she had left was claimed by a horde of pens, pencils, rulers, graph paper, and homemade charts. A "cheat sheet" on the wall behind her secondary monitor listed common frequencies and sound values. Her nice headphones, as much as it had pained her to take them out of the house, dangled from a peg that Avery had installed against the side of her tower. Wires were everywhere, even scattered haphazardly on the floor when they weren't bundled together. 

Saoirse lifted her head to watch as Avery pointed to a doodle she had drawn earlier that same day. "I was wondering the same thing, and then it hit me. You said something about something that R-- Camry said to you once. It was about how, when she was staying inside the Ghost Zone, there were all these little places that seemed cut off from the rest of the Zone." As she spoke, she indicated the wiggly circles scattered around a section of the middle of the board. "Kinda like little worlds inside of the larger one." 

"I  _vaguely_ remember that?" Saoirse replied. She didn't even have to look at what her hands were doing as she popped out the memory chip in her camera and loaded it into her computer tower. "She stayed with this one princess lady for a while. I forget her name."

"Right, sure, okay," Avery said with a flippant wave of her hand. "But what I'm getting at is that these ghosts seem to have their own spaces within their dimension. It's kinda like they're territorial, in a way. I had this theory even before I met you or Camry, actually, that the reason why she would have to fight off so many ghosts all the time was because they were vying to take over her territory."

Saoirse sat up a little straighter in her chair at that. "Wait, wait. You're making it sound like the ghost fights we were dealing with were  _turf wars_. Is that what you're getting at?"

"Maybe, but maybe not in such a rudimentary kind of way," Avery said. She pointed to a crude drawing of Earth and the small, very basic-looking crown that hovered above it. "The ghosts she fought would cause chaos to try and upset the equilibrium of the city. If you look at it from a sociological viewpoint, it's a lot like inciting an uproar to destabilize a higher power's credibility. She would kick their butts and send them back to the Ghost Zone with their tails between their legs every time, though, and things would go back to normal until the next attack. Before the task force showed up, she was the only thing that stood between us and them.

"It's not like she controls it at all, but what if her gatekeeping this world from the next one automatically makes her the  _owner_ of this territory?" 

 From halfway across the room, Saoirse's eyes all but bugged out of her head. "You think she's got the whole  _Earth_ under her power?"

" _Whoa_ , whoa-- no! Not really," Avery said quickly while waving her hands back and forth rapidly in front of her. "I mean more like this portion of the world. Bailey Lake. The portal under the lake is incredibly stable for being a natural one, so it must be becoming an important one for ghosts that want to cross over to our dimension. Just the fact that it's here because of Relle's actions kinda gives her some sort of claim to the territory around it, you know?" 

"Yikes," Saoirse muttered. "I never thought of it like that. So, what does that have to do with how many more ghosts are appearing in the city right now?" 

Almost solemnly, Avery used the pads of her fingers to wipe away the crown above the Earth. A shadowy smudge was all that remained in its wake. "What normally happens when there's a vacuum of power somewhere?"

Her audience of one sucked in a sharp breath. " _Oh_." 

"Yeah:  _Oh_." Avery then spun to stand by the next white board over and indicated the large calendar magnetically stuck to it. "I've been using the Ghost Alert app to track how many sightings there've been every day, and the numbers just keep growing. Already, there's been talk on the news of evacuations and people getting scared to leave their homes at any time of day. This shift in the weather is hurting the city, too. Power lines are snapping and trees are starting to come down. It's too much of a coincidence to actually  _be_ a coincidence, you know? If I'm right about this, we've got a big problem barreling right toward us. These invading ghosts  _know_ that Relle Phantom is gone, and they're fighting over who gets to take her territory for themselves."

"That... makes  _sense_ ," Saoirse breathed between the fingers hovering over her glossy lips. Those slender brown fingers then curled into a gentle fist. "I guess-- maybe she shouldn't have just left the country like she did. But she can't just come back either! The task force will get her now that they have her ecto-signature, so they could track her down and capture her again." 

Her arms went around her to try and stop her shivering; it wasn't just a symptom from the rain. "Could you imagine how bad that would be?" 

"She wouldn't be able to help us in either situation," Avery responded with surprising calm. "Captured or in hiding, we can't ask her to come back and fix this. We've gotta do something about these mandates against ghosts and figure out a way to protect ourselves until she returns." 

"Right," Saoirse nodded before spinning her chair back around to look at her monitor. The upload of her camera's files was complete, so she opened it with a click and watched as her screen filled with dozens of short video files whose names were only strings of numbers and underscores. "What's the status of those ray guns you were fixing up?"

" _Blasters_ , thank you," Avery reminded her in monotone. Machine parts rattled and clinked as she picked up the latest prototype of the anti-ghost weapon she was filling her spare time with. "They're coming along, but I still can't seem to focus the energy into a thin-enough stream that could resemble anything like a bullet. That's gonna take a while to perfect. What about you and your sound files?"

Saoirse opened up the first file and turned up the volume on her speakers, slowly filling the space with the sounds of heavy rain, peals of thunder, and blasts of ectoplasmic fire coming from just out of the frame. It was hard to tell who she was trying to film, especially since the running crowds and general mayhem made her camera blur everything with her sharp, jerky movements. On top of that, the real-time rain on the roof did its best to drown out the audio further. 

"Most of my stuff from today is like this," Saoirse sighed with a hard gesture at her screen. "All this stormy weather really makes it hard to get clear footage-- and don't even get me  _started_ on trying to get close enough to actually hear what the ghosts are saying! But I think I might be able to extract a couple of good clips and add them to the pile."

"You're a genius, by the way," Avery said while using a screwdriver to open the case of another blaster prototype. "Using your audio editing skills to compile a database of sound-based ghost attacks? I never would've thought of it."

"I just hope I can find the right frequency code for you to do something with," she responded before fitting her headphones over her ears. The rest of the world came to a grinding halt as all sound was dampened to absolutely nothing. 

Her goal, besides cataloging whatever might come in handy some day, was to figure out how to block out ghostly noise. She had gone out on countless errands in the last two and a half weeks in order to collect as many undead sound bites as she could, and though it had resulted in a few close calls for her safety, she couldn't help but look at her growing files and feel like it was all worth it. Once she found the common "denominator" for the frequencies that allowed ghosts to use their voices as weapons, she would be able to pass that data on to Avery to make a device that could counteract it. The theory seemed like it was holding water, too, as she broke down each audio file to its barest components and took notes on their similarities to one another. 

It wasn't easy for her mind to wander as she worked, but while her computer struggled to render a particularly large video file, she found herself thinking of the different fights that she had seen her girlfriend endure in the past. Back then, Saoirse's role had been to record what she could from a safe distance and not get in the way. It was mostly so she could easily pull from her collection whenever the public's opinion of Relle needed a boost, and on more than one occasion she had successfully submitted her video files anonymously to the local news channels whenever they sent out calls for content. As useful as it used to be, clearly there was little need for her efforts now that the government had made their verdict on Relle Phantom quite clear. 

Saoirse's back and shoulder muscles bunched up. She stretched her arms above her head and held the pose for a few seconds before relaxing in sync with a deep exhale. If she could find the right frequency for Avery, her contributions to Team Phantom would level up in a big way. She wasn't just a camera person anymore-- Saoirse Mahadeo was going to find a way to play an active role in this fight, no matter what she had to do.

Something like an hour later, a hand waving in her periphery caught her attention, and she paused her video. With her headphones around her neck, she turned to look at Avery with a quizzical expression. "Yeah?"

Avery held out the now-dry hijab scarf toward her and watched her wrap her hair back up. "Thanks. Oh, wow, it's so warm!" Saoirse couldn't help but sink into it with a blissful sigh, momentarily boneless. 

"I also had a question for you, Saoirse," Avery continued. After a nod to go on, she asked, "Have you been keeping up contact with Camry? Not that I'm worried about her not being able to take care of herself or anything, but still. How's she doing?" 

"Oh, uh, well," Saoirse hummed awkwardly. "I actually got a call from her last night. She was panicking about losing all her money to a bunch of thieves." 

"Oh no!" Avery gasped. "Why didn't she go after them?" 

"I asked her the same thing, but she told me that Ari's ankle is hurt and she didn't want to get separated from her by running after them." With a mournful shake of her head, Saoirse added, "She even asked me if I thought their whole mission was cursed, or something like that. I said it wasn't, but what do I know about being 'cursed?'" 

"Yikes," was all Avery said for a moment. She silently fixed her ponytail and shifted most of her weight to the other foot. "Is she still gonna keep searching?" 

"She says she's gotta, so I guess so," Saoirse replied. "It's not like here is any safer than down there, being homeless and broke aside. I'm worried about her, though."

"No kidding."

The headphones went back on over her hijab, and their work resumed in comfortable silence.

~*~ 

"There you are, Joaquín!" The voice that spoke came around the corner and boomed when Ricardo set eyes on his "third" oldest child sitting on a living room couch while thumbing through the spell book in his lap. Miguel sat beside him and was interrupted in his explanation as their father appeared on the scene. "I was looking for you. I want to show you something I think you'll like." 

"Oh, sure," Joaquín replied before handing the book over to Miguel and rising to his feet. They were in the main house, which was by far the largest of the main four and held all the magical places within its walls. Following his father proved to be a short jaunt down two hallways and a flight of steps. Before long, the library's heavy doors stood proudly before them. 

"I know you've been doing a good job with keeping your interest in ghosts to yourself, mijo," Ricardo began. They had yet to go in, so it was just the two of them standing in the hallway as he spoke and Joaquín listened. "And I know it must be hard when it's something you're clearly familiar with. That's why I figured that it was about time I showed you what we have in our library about ghosts. After all," he continued while turning the ornate handle and pushing open the door on the left, "what good does it do to suppress curiosity? That might as well be the true enemy of magic." 

This wasn't his first time in the family's library, but seeing so many books all around him never failed to take Joaquín's breath away. Apparently at one point, Laia's need to keep things orderly and symmetrical had gotten the best of her and she had directed an entire week's worth of energy into rearranging the library's shelves. Each section was dedicated to a language, including the regional variations within said language, and more or less followed a pattern that matched how the world's countries were located in relation to one another. There were plenty of places to settle in for studying, including where Dude had fallen asleep the night he had received the strange dream of Ari and Cam. 

Ricardo raised an eyebrow at how his son glanced at the chair and then immediately averted his gaze. Something was definitely going through Joaquín's head, and Ricardo's emotional specialization easily picked up feelings of guilt and apprehension intertwined with his psyche. As much as he wanted to ask if something was wrong, Ricardo sufficed with mentally filing this observation away and moving on to what he wanted to show him. 

"It'd be nice if you knew Old English already, but it's too soon to teach you a new language," he said as he led the way among the enormous shelves full of well-loved books and journals. "Some of the best ghost stories come from that time period. Still, there's plenty of material in Spanish and Greek." 

Over in "Europe," he used his fingertips to help in scanning the bookshelves for the right subject. Joaquín remained silent and stoic, a strange change of pace compared to his usual demeanor. When they finally found the area for all undead topics, Ricardo started pulling down a variety field journals and other texts that looked to have been bound by hand. He stacked them up in his son's arms and started explaining them one by one. 

"This is a compendium of ancient ghosts and their abilities. Here we have a guide for proper self-defense when your enemies aren't corporeal. These ones have some very useful spells for safely communing with the dead, though you'll have to find them among all the other seance spells..." 

"Uh, Dad?" Joaquín finally spoke from behind the stack of books that reached high enough to cover the lower half of his face. "I get why you're doing this-- self-defense is necessary, sure-- but I was kinda hoping there'd be something more, I dunno, cooperative that I could study?" 

"'Cooperative?'" Ricardo echoed. He looked over his shoulder at his son curiously then. "What do you mean?"

"There's gotta be  _some_ kind of research about working with ghosts instead of against them, right?" he tried. His arms wobbled under the weight of the books, try as he did to stand firm, but he didn't drop any. "I mean, how could they possibly  _all_ be our enemies?"

His father blew out a heavy but short breath and took the top three books off of the stack, thereby easing some of the burden on his son's arms. "I know it seems like a generalization, but the history between ghosts and witches goes back farther than modern civilization. That kind of rift reaches far and deep, even after thousands of years. Ghosts can't be trusted any more than humans can. That's why we keep ourselves safe and protected with our barriers and spells, and we don't reveal our existences to the outside world. You know about the Salem Trials, right?" 

Joaquín nodded at that. "Yeah, of course I know."

"Well, that was only one incident, and it barely scratches the surface of our kind's history of persecution." Ricardo motioned for him to set down the books and follow him. They backtracked through a few more aisles and crossed 'Europe' to reach Spain, where he pulled out an encyclopedic text bound in a shroud of ancient-looking leather. A lock was embedded in the spine, but a quick word in Spanish unlatched the cover and allowed it to slip off. "I didn't really want to show you this so soon after your rejoining us, mijo, but I think it's more important that you understand why we do what we do. 

"This is a complete history of the struggles witchkind endured on the European continent," he explained as he passed it over. "I would show you the volume of this about North America, but it's a little too short to get the point across. Witches who crossed over the Atlantic by then had learned how to protect one another much better, so there were fewer incidents worth recording."

Joaquín accepted the book but had so far refused to open it. Some small, rebellious part of him was stubbornly telling him to disregard the past, but he couldn't just ignore the fact that what his father was saying made sense. That's why he was quiet in agreeing not to show the book to his younger siblings or to take it out of the library. After offering a few more helpful tidbits of wisdom, Ricardo left his son to his own devices and closed the library doors with a resounding click behind himself. 

Looking down at the book in his hands, Joaquín frowned. Its borders were gilded with a strange gold that seemed to catch the light like liquid metal, and the edges of the pages were a faded shade of not-quite-yellow. He bit his lower lip in thought before tucking the tome under his arm and retracing his steps to where the texts on ghosts had been left in a pile on the floor. He searched through the stack for a moment; when his fingers settled on the right book, he eased it free and flipped it open to the first page, where the author of the journal had written her name long ago. 

" _Spells of Communing_ , by Rheya," he read aloud. "No last name...?" 

Still, this would probably come in handy. Settling in among the shelves, Joaquín began to flip through the dusty pages, searching for just the right spell to help him contact the 'dead.' If everyone thought all ghosts were their enemies, then he was just going to have to do this himself.

~*~

"Oh god, Ari, what do we  _do?_ " Camry fretted. She itched to pace, to start using her hands to nervously gesture her feelings into physical existence, but she knew from weeks of experience that doing so would just throw off Ari's lip-reading and communication via signing. "We have no money! We can't keep going if we can't buy food or whatever for ourselves!" 

"Okay, first of all, slow down a little bit," Ariadna said sternly, her index finger pointed to the sky, "because I can barely understand you at all." She watched as Camry sucked in a deep breath, let it out through her mouth, and then relaxed her shoulders until they weren't hiked up around her ears anymore. "Second of all, we aren't completely out of money. Remember that check that you and my brother won for the dance competition? I asked your mom to cash it in for me, and I've kept it safe in my shoe for emergencies like this." 

"You did?" Camry gasped. To prove it, Ari untied the laces on her right shoe and slipped her foot out. The sole inside came up with a little picking at the edge, and five one-hundred dollar bills stared back at them both. "Oh my gosh! Ari, you're a genius!"

"You learn a thing or two growing up poor as dirt," she said while sliding her shoe back on. "Keeping all your money in one place isn't smart, for one thing. Besides, how is a thief gonna steal this from me without taking my whole shoe?"

"Have I ever told you that you light up my life?" Camry asked as she pretended to cry from happiness. 

"It wouldn't hurt you to say it more often," was Ari's proud answer. "The thing is, we still need to exchange this for the right currency. I guess I forgot to do that closer to the border, but we'll have to make do. And no matter what, we have to do better about budgeting what we have. No fancy meals, no more hotels, and no more impulse buys." 

Camry nodded along to that, a hand on her chin pensively. "Got it." 

Visibly wilting at the thought, Ari continued with, "And we might have to get used to the idea of sleeping outside." 

_"Uuuugh!_ "

"I don't like it any more than you do, Cam."

"I  _know_..." 


	22. Shift

Performing the seance for the undead obviously wasn't going to be as simple as just picking the right name out of a phone book and dialing the listed number. As Joaquín read the chapter over and over, committing a little bit more to memory with each pass, a pit of hopelessness started to form in his insides. A summoning circle? Exact ratios of rare herbs to water found in only a few parts of the world? A mile-long chant that had to be perfectly spoken or else the entire operation would have to be redone from scratch? 

"No wonder Dad had no problem with letting me see this," he groaned, flopping back onto the rest of the couch lengthwise and letting the journal fall open on his downtrodden face. His voice came out muffled, even to his own ears, when he added, "There's  _gotta_ be an easier way to do this..." 

From several aisles away, a door creaked open and in padded a set of small but remarkably loud feet. Joaquín didn't even need to take the book off of his face to know who had stopped by the library. 

Little Antonio, only five years old and the full brother of Miguel and Terese, had no qualms against making noise in a library. As far as he was concerned, being loud was for whenever he wanted as long as there were no adults or older siblings around to shush him. He bravely marched through the stacks, occasionally jumping from light patch to light patch on the deep purple hardwood floor or hiding behind a shelf from imaginary enemies. Joaquín stayed still to listen without drawing attention to himself.

The toddler hadn't exactly taken much of a shine to his newest older brother, and even after nearly three weeks of sharing space in the compound, it was clear that Antonio still felt too shy to do much in the unfamiliar boy's presence. He was too young for his magic to have awoken, though everyone who knew better expected it to happen at any point in the very near future, so the only reason he had to be around the library was to play. Something told Joaquín that Antonio probably wasn't supposed to be in here by himself, which was why he resolved to keep quiet and pose as a guardian. Just in case.

Antonio crowed with delight at the top of his lungs, and a heavy thumping sound against the floor immediately broke Joaquín's silent pact. He sat up on the couch and looked around for his brother, a sense of worry guiding his eyes over everything in sight. A giggle wafted through the air and Antonio rolled back to his feet, apparently not at all fazed by the blooming red mark on his elbow. He started to zoom around again, his arms out at his sides like he was pretending to be an airplane. The sound effects he shouted were obligatory, of course. 

His rapid stomping footsteps were coming closer to where Joaquín sat, so it was only a matter of seconds before Antonio saw that he wasn't alone. Somewhere in his mind, Joaquín had to laugh at himself for being so worried about being seen. Sure, he was planning on doing something that the rest of the family would definitely frown upon, but it wasn't like Antonio would understand that-- the kid could barely read anything that didn't have copious amounts of pictures to go with it. Still, Joaquín knew that he was something of a stranger to his youngest brother, and he didn't want to frighten or scare him off. 

" _NIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeRRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOMMmmmmmmmmmmmm_!" 

Jeez, did Antonio have a set of lungs or a pair of car horns in his chest? 

He raced past the couch and skidded to a stop to turn around. Antonio blinked up at Joaquín curiously, clearly a little surprised to see him but not as startled as the older boy had expected. Without magic to let him learn new languages at the drop of a hat, Antonio could only speak in Spanish at his natural five-year-old level. 

"Hey, bud. What are you playing?" Joaquín asked as he shifted the seance journal from his lap to under his thigh. 

At that, Antonio jumped from the floor to the couch cushion in one go and spread his arms out to either side again. "I'm a fighter plane!" he yelled. "Evil bad guys are trying to shoot me down! I hafta stay where it's bright so they can't get me!"

Feigning disbelief, Joaquín clapped his hands to his cheeks and gasped dramatically. "No  _way!_  You can't let them get you! Fly away, fly away!"

Antonio let out another loud giggle and jumped away, taking to the floors at Mach 3. He disappeared around the corner of a set of shelves, but after a second his footsteps halted. Creeping back into view, he peeked out around the shelf and looked expectantly at Joaquín. "Aren't you gonna come and get me, 'Quín?" 

Well, who could say no to such a hopeful set of young, green boulder opal eyes? Joaquín blinked twice and then frowned, cupping his hand over his chin as he pretended to think very deeply. "Hmmm..." Then without warning, he surged up from the couch and started to chase Antonio, who shrieked with glee and dashed away in search of the nearest patch of sunlight streaming in through the closed windows. 

The sounds of excited laughter and squeals for help were loud enough to seep through the thick library doors and down the halls. As they passed by, Olivia and AJ raised an eyebrow at each other and paused in front of where the noises seemed to be coming from. The handles clicked gently under their hands, and after peering in they could clearly here Antonio cry out, "Throw me again! Again!"

As soon as they walked further through the aisles of shelves and found the right spot, both twins smiled at the sight of Joaquín tossing Antonio onto the couch to the delight of the toddler. Antonio was scrambling back onto the floor to be thrown again in a matter of a second, and Joaquín was happy to oblige. "Well, not to act like a librarian, but aren't you supposed to be quiet in a library?" Olivia pointed out. 

Both boys looked up and saw them then. Antonio rushed over to give her leg a hug and beam up at her with his big, colorful eyes. " _Pleeease_ don't tell Papá!" he begged. 

Olivia settled a hand on top of his head and smiled. "Tell him what?" she pretended, her smile tweaked with a knowing look. 

Switching to English, Joaquín piped up with, "Sorry, guys. It was just nice to finally have him feel comfortable around me." 

"C'mon, you think you're in  _trouble?_ " AJ laughed, though she spoke in Spanish. "We want to play, too, dummy. Let's just go outside to do it." 

"Yay!" Antonio cheered. Letting go of Olivia, he ran over and yanked on Joaquín's hand to pull him toward the open doors. "Let's go, let's go!"

"Whoa, buddy, don't tear my arm off!" he called as he was helpless to do anything other than follow. 

~*~ 

The first sign for Avery and Saoirse that something was wrong came when the computer monitors all around them started to flicker and flash in and out. Saoirse cried out wordlessly and rushed to save her progress, though the entire rig powered down before she could be sure she had gotten there in time. "What the heck?" she asked no one in particular. 

When the tremors beneath their feet were finally strong enough to be felt, Avery and Saoirse's eyes met and a look of confusion passed between them. "What--?" the older woman muttered, rising to stand by her work bench. Saoirse bolted out of her task chair and backed away from her computer, her eyes darting all over their small space. "An earthquake...?" 

"Why the--? Ah! How the--?  _Aah!_ " Saoirse tried to ask, but she kept getting cut off by a new, more intense surge of shaking than the last. 

The high-pitched sounds of glass rattling got them both to look at the table pressed against the wall furthest from the door. A rack of test tubes filled with green ectoplasmic residue sat on the cheap plastic surface, next to a secondhand centrifuge that was already inching closer to the edge. "Shit! Grab those!" Avery screamed before lunging for her own desk. Saoirse rushed over to lift up the heavy rack and cradled it against her chest. Its shaking didn't stop.

" _Whattawedooo_?" she yelled. "Avery! What's going  _ooon?_ "

"Get outside!" Avery answered over the din of every piece of machinery in their workshop making an enormous racket. "Hurry!"

It was over only a handful of seconds after they had both managed to dance around the clutter and reach the sealed and bolted door. Under the dim nighttime sky covered by thunderheads, they watched trees shiver from more than just the raging storm. They could hear branches breaking in the distance, and something heavy inside the workshop shattered on the concrete floor. Avery cursed again but kept it under her breath. 

Then silence reigned, and the weight of the air pressing on their eardrums was oppressively uncomfortable. "I..." Saoirse whispered just to break the tension. "That sounded... bad." 

"C'mon, let's go back in. Be careful," Avery needlessly warned her "apprentice" before they reentered the code on the door. It didn't open quite as far as before-- a fact that explained itself once both girls squeezed their way in and found that the old computer monitors shelf had toppled over. Glass was everywhere, and cracked bits of dusty plastic casing had been flung in all directions. The blueprints that the makeshift shelf had held were fine save for being trapped beneath the rubble. 

"Yikes," Saoirse said with a wince. Still, after assessing the state of their workshop more thoroughly, they had gotten pretty lucky. None of the most expensive tech was damaged and only a few of Avery's projects had rattled themselves off of the tables. Cleaning every little bit of metal and glass out of the mats was going to be a chore in and of itself, but it was a small price to pay.

"Seismic activity in our area is  _not_ normal," Avery murmured half to herself and half to Saoirse as they worked to put their spaces back together. "I have to get down to the lake, I have to get a reading on the portal's output--" 

"Avery, they cut off access to the beach over a week ago," Saoirse reminded her sternly. Her nice headphones went back on their peg, and she booted up her tower to see if her attempt to save her progress had succeeded. "You  _wanna_ get arrested?" 

"Obviously not," Avery shot back, "but I'm starting to get really worried. If that was the work of an ultra-powerful ghost, we're in trouble. If it wasn't-- as much as I dread the idea-- we've probably got even bigger problems on our hands than we know how to deal with." 

Saoirse didn't know what to say to that. Who would? A moment of silence hung in the air, interrupted only by gentle  _plinks_ of broken glass being gathered into little piles, before she dusted off her hands and navigated over to the Internet on her computer. "I'm gonna see what the news has to say about this." 

 The first site she went to was, of course, for the most popular of Bailey Lake's local TV stations. A segment on local firemen reporting how they struggle to keep up with the ghost-spawned turmoil around the city suddenly cut out to deliver a breaking new special; intrigued, Saoirse turned up the volume and shifted to one side so Avery could watch over her shoulder. 

"This just in: new developments regarding the case of Relle Phantom's inexplicable disappearance have come to light!" the professionally-dressed newscaster announced in a serious yet mildly excited tone. Her manicured hands made small, firm gestures as she spoke. "In the weeks since Relle Phantom managed to escape a high-security research facility, it seemed as if the ghost was no longer anything more than a ghost story. Yet a photo posted on Instagraph has managed to change that outlook and give us a clue as to where Bailey Lake's most famous vigilante may have gone." 

"You're kidding me," Saoirse whispered, her eyes wide with dread and fear. 

"Three weeks ago, an Instagraph user by the handle of PATrol105 took a picture of the fireflies gathering around him during a shift on the border between the United States and Mexico." Beside her, that same dim picture appeared onscreen. The tiny pinpricks of light could only have been the fireflies clustering in midair. "Appearing to no longer be flying, the fireflies can be seen hovering in midair without the use of their wings. Once the image caught the attention of spectral specialists, who then asked for the unfiltered version, it was run through several visual tests to see if anything otherworldly was going on-- and what they found was extraordinary."

The image, now doctored to show what the specialists had found, transitioned to show that the fireflies were not hovering in midair but instead resting on what could only be a staircase of invisible tiles. Two parallel edges of each tile had a row of smaller, darker squares, causing it to resemble a frame from an old reel of film. Someone's heel was also just barely visible at the edge of the picture, but that was the only indication of any presence beyond that of the fireflies. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Saoirse knew it wasn't Camry's heel-- it was clad in sneakers, not boots.

"As you can see here, these insects are resting on what everyone in Bailey Lake can recognize as old film squares-- the very same squares that Relle Phantom uses to get around," said the newscaster. A second image flashed onscreen: it was Relle running across her tiles, which were fading from existence every few feet behind her. The photo had been taken from the ground level and caught the way her sheer silk overshirt billowed out like a sail as she ran. "Such conclusive evidence can point to only one answer: Relle Phantom, after escaping the facility where she was lawfully detained, has jumped across the border and is hiding somewhere on Mexican soil. Authorities in Mexico have been notified and will be doing all they can to find the ghost while she is still at large." 

The camera then panned over to her co-host, who continued with, "In the meantime, local police departments are working around the clock to restore peace to the city, and it's nothing close to a simple chore. We go now, live, to--" 

Saoirse's cursor found the mute button and pressed it, effectively cutting off the news. Her hand shook even as it rested on the mouse. "What..." she tried to say, but had to swallow first in order to get any more out. "What do we do, Avery?" 

"What  _can_ we do?" was her harsh reply as she launched away from the desk and planted both fists against her work table. "They figured out that she made it across the border. We can't keep that information under wraps, especially since it's out there for the whole world to see." 

She turned back around and gave Saoirse an apologetic glance. "Mexico's not as safe as we'd hoped it would be. Not anymore, anyway. All we can do is alert Camry and Ari, and tell them to watch each other's backs twice as closely."

"I'll call her now," Saoirse said, her phone already in hand, but her dialing stopped the second she laid eyes on the muted broadcast. Sound instantly flooded the room again at the press of a button. 

"--anation for how it started, but when the earthquake began we lost track of the group'a ghosts we were chasing," the middle-aged police officer said into the field reporter's microphone. "I haven't felt anything that strong since my academy days in Cali, y'know?" Only a few more words were exchanged between the officer and the reporter before they unexpectedly had to part ways-- another unfamiliar ghost had been picked up on the department's radar, and the officer needed to get back to work. 

"We're receiving reports from local geologists that no nearby fault line should have been the cause of the quake. Further investigations will be taking place over the next few days to determine the source, but for now we advise all residents to brush up on their earthquake safety knowledge and prepare to evacuate at a moment's notice." Nothing after that felt important enough to keep the newscast going, so Saoirse muted it again and resumed scrolling through her contacts for her girlfriend's. 

"Can't believe this is happening," she grumbled, the phone against her ear. 

There were several rings before she heard exactly what she didn't want to hear: "Heya, you're in Camry's voicemail right now! Either my phone is dead or I'm too overwhelmed by phone calls to pick up right now, but leave a message and I'll respond A.S.A.P. Bye!"

"Oh,  _c'mon!_ " Saoirse yelled. There was a beep to let her know that the message had started recording, so she switched to a gentler voice in record time. "Hey, love, it's Seersh. Look, something kinda important just came up and I need you to call me back as soon as you  _possibly_ can. Okay? I hope everything's going well on your trip. I'll talk to you later, I guess. Love you!"

The earthquake was enough of a scare to prompt them to end their research for the night, and Avery drove Saoirse home before returning to her own apartment for some much-needed rest. Sleep didn't come to take her away for several hours, however, as the threat of more shaking and the FBI breaking down her door stole what little chance she had to drift off. The nighttime sounds of ghost rays firing and police sirens wailing in the distance were the buttload of sprinkles that she never ordered on the ice cream sundae of her evening. 

Bailey Lake was coming undone at the seams, and even the earth itself seemed eager to help it along.

~*~

With the seance journal safely tucked away under his pillow and most of his nervous energy released by playing games in the yard with his younger siblings, Joaquín settled into the living room of the main house with an air of total relaxation about him. He had even managed to sneak into the main kitchen and steal a couple of the herbs the seance called for. 'I could get used to this' he thought as he sank into the couch cushions and closed his eyes. 

Those same eyes flashed open only a moment later when the front door opened with a jarring  _BANG_ and bounced off the wall. He peeked over the back of the couch to see who was stomping in, and his brows knit together at the sight of his younger brother. Miguel, steaming and more than a little singed around the edges, muttered to himself as he stormed around a corner and down the hall. 

He was obviously pissed, but Joaquín rose to his feet anyway and followed behind carefully. "Hey, Miguel, is everything alright?"

The bathtub's faucet in the ground-floor bathroom ran at full power then, and Miguel's biting voice rose to be heard over the roar. "Not for another  _forty thousand years!_  'Cause that's how long it's gonna take me to ever get control over my  _goddamn magic!_ " 

Water splashing and pained hissing followed through the closed door soon after, leading Joaquín to believe that Miguel had climbed into the tub and was trying to soothe his burns. He hesitated on the other side, his hand just beginning to reach for the knob, but pulled back and slipped away down the hall. His substantial amount of experience with hot-tempered people told him that now was not a good time to press, even in the most well-meant of ways. Even so, that didn't mean he wasn't going to meddle at all. 

When Miguel stepped out of the bathroom about half of an hour later, he was cleansed of the smoke and ash that had adhered itself to his skin and hair. He now wore a T-shirt and pair of shorts that Joaquín suspected belonged to Caesar. Steam rose up into the air from the top of his head, and, much like whenever Camry's hair became wet, he dried off in mere minutes. As intriguing as it was to see something so familiar come from a source as vastly opposite as a witch's magic, it took everything in him to not ask about it. Instead, Joaquín looked up and offered Miguel a kind smile.

"Hey, you wanna talk about it?" he asked.

Miguel looked away, glowering to one side as he slipped the hand towel off from around his neck. "No."

"You sure?" he persisted. "I don't exactly have enough experience to know the whole story, you know." 

The towel twisted between his hands as Miguel shifted his gaze to the carpeted floor at his feet. Of course Joaquín didn't know. How could he possibly know? He hadn't been there when they'd needed to install the flame-resistant carpet in all of the houses; so many footprints of varying sizes had been scorched into the lacquer and wood below everything. It was like a collage of failure through time itself. He hadn't been there for all the moments when guilt had eaten away at Miguel, rendering him useless with tears and regret as his siblings were treated for their burns. Magic did away with the scars in a heartbeat, but there wasn't a magic spell or poultice that could do the same for Miguel's conscience.

The clearing's edge around the complex was once a lot closer to the houses, too. When a fire line had been necessary to make sure the forest on their coven's mountain didn't burn during the height of Mexico's hottest months, that had been pushed back. 

Camila's house, though pretty while painted such a light shade of green, had once been blue and white. That had been the original house, though, before it burned down on the eve of Día de Muertos when Miguel was only seven years old. 

Joaquín was right. He didn't know, and he couldn't know if no one filled him in. Miguel shook his head and turned to leave, but something their father had said long ago stopped him in his tracks.  _"We're witches, mijo, and we're proud of the fact that we can use magic. We share our knowledge freely, never hiding secrets among our clans or each other. We have enemies out there, but the greatest and deadliest enemies of all are willful ignorance and exclusion."_

"... You'll never realize how lucky you are to have such an obedient power," Miguel began as he turned back around to look at his older brother. "I've...  _never_ been able to control my magic. Ever. It's the fucking  _worst_." By how his voice dropped while he cursed, he didn't want the wrong parental figures to overhear him. 

Joaquín patted the sofa cushion beside him indicatively and waited to speak until after Miguel had sunk down into it. "Were you trying to control it today?"

"If I could just put out the fires, I...!" he griped, and the barest traces of smoke started to curl up from the towel, now completely dry, in his hands. Joaquín knew those signs better than anyone and gently pulled the cloth away, much to Miguel's chagrin. "See? I can't even  _talk_ about it without setting something on fire!"

"Hey, it's just a towel. No big deal," Joaquín said.

"No, it  _is_ a big deal!" Miguel shot back. "'Cause the 'deal' isn't just a towel! It's the house, it's the forest, it's the carpet-- it's the fact that I keep hurting everyone I care about without meaning to, and I don't know how to stop it." 

As he spoke, tears had begun to well up in his pinfire opal eyes. The little pinpricks of shifting colors dulled and became unfocused behind the saltwater, try as he did to suck his emotions back in for appearance's sake. Joaquín swallowed the lump in his throat and thought back to what he knew from his experience with helping Relle Phantom adjust to her own volcanic powers. 

Actually... when had he stopped worrying about getting burned? At first, things had been a little touch-and-go here and there. She avoided maintaining physical contact for too long, and whenever her chronic shyness struck she would immediately shrink away in case her blushing actually reached inhuman levels of temperature. He and Saoirse had understood, of course, but after a while it became obvious that their own fears about it had subsided. Without their own projecting influence, Camry's fears also diminished and she had let herself grow more comfortable with her supernatural warmth. 

Of course, now that they all knew that Saoirse had managed to somehow remain completely unharmed while kneeling in a patch of burning grass, it seemed pretty obvious that at least she had become all but immune to the consequences of Relle's fire. Knowing that Dude was a witch, anathema to ghosts, had prevented them from experimenting to see if he was also immune, but the questionable theory still hung in the air above their heads. A part of him suspected that the romantic tie between two girls had played a role in the discovery, which meant that if it actually was important, he wouldn't be immune.

That wasn't exactly information that could help Miguel here, though. He was scared, unconvinced of his own dependency and integrity. There were memories of his own accidents haunting him and suppressing his self-confidence. How could Joaquín help his younger brother break out of this cycle? 

Several heavy moments of silence had passed as Joaquín thought. Then, before Miguel could speak up, he jumped to his feet and grinned down at his pyrokinetic brother. "Okay, here's my plan--" 

" _No_ , no, no plans," Miguel was quick to interject. 

"Just hear me out, okay? If we're being honest, I think we both know what the most fireproof room in basically any house is: the kitchen." One of Miguel's dark eyebrows rose a little, but he said nothing. "It'll just be you and me. We're making dinner tonight." 

"What?" Miguel sputtered. "Dinner? For  _everyone?_  You've gotta be kidding me."

"Aw, c'mon, it'll be easy," Joaquín said boldly. "It'll be pretty basic, but I know how to make a bunch of stuff."

"I don't," he said. "Why the hell do you know how to cook, anyway?" 

What an interesting question; it was one that Dude suspected was rooted in a lot of misconceptions about gender roles, especially since he didn't see a lot of his brothers helping in the kitchens much beyond washing dishes according to the rotating chore chart. After living with just his mom and sister all his life, and after getting used to stepping up to help his mom out as much as possible when she was tired from working all day and night, Dude couldn't help but grow more and more irritated at the sight. So, in rolling up his metaphorical sleeves and setting his sights on giving gender roles all four of his middle fingers, he was going get started with Miguel.

"That's a story you'll have to be in the kitchen to hear," Joaquín answered. With his shoes on, he bade Miguel to stay where he was before rushing out the door to inform his tías of his plan. One by one, he convinced them to step back and relax for an evening while he took over the duty of preparing the family meal. In serving well over a dozen people, it wasn't going to be an easy task. Tía Elena was especially reluctant, but after he explained that he wanted to try and show Miguel how to constructively use heat in the hopes that it would get him more accustomed to his own magic, she gave her blessing to the project. 

In fact, she also gave him a box of recipes to choose from. Each recipe was organized from simple to complex and had countless little notes and edits scribbled in several colors of ink in the margins. Marina offered to supervise, but her son declined and promised that they would be careful. "Did you get to show them Mrs. Sadie's show yet?" he asked with an insider's grin, one that Marina mirrored in such a way that it was clear they were related. Joaquín knew that his mom had wanted to share one of her interests with his tías, particularly one where she could then brag about personally knowing the celebrity herself, and what better time to do it than now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hurray! Things are happening! What do you think is the cause of the earthquakes in Bailey Lake? And how do you predict that dinner that Miguel and Joaquín make will turn out? Let me know in the comments!
> 
> See you in the next chapter!


	23. The Failure of Magic

Cooking dinner... was a disaster. Miguel finally gave up and swore off the art entirely, much to Joaquín's immense disappointment, after failing in his second attempt at not burning something on the stove. Knowing his brother had already had a long day, Joaquín didn't try too hard to stop Miguel from leaving and sufficed with salvaging what he could himself. Even so, that didn't stop him from silently promising to figure out a way to help Miguel learn control over his fire magic one way or another.

~*~

The late July sun, as much as it is romanticized as the pinnacle of summer and everything that goes with it, could not have been more despised in Ari and Camry's eyes. Their cell phones, batteries drained completely, were dead weight and growing heavier by the hour as they trekked alongside a bustling highway that ran between Cuencamé and Durango City; it was the floating capital of the state and their next destination. The backpacks chafing against their sunburns was nothing compared to the pain caused by the memory of what had happened that very morning. 

"Wait, sorry, I-- I need a minute," Ari announced. She swung her pack to the dusty ground and dropped down beside it to massage her sprained ankle. Only a handful of yards away, cars blasted by at incredible speeds. Sometimes Camry could catch snippets of the songs playing through their open windows. 

After waving her hand in Ari's line of sight to get her attention, Camry crouched down and asked, "Are you gonna be okay?"

"Yeah, just... one minute," Ari said, her tone tight with irritation and pain. 

Every part of Camry's experience in dance was screaming at her for letting Ari put so much strain on her injury like this. She wasn't going to get better without enough time to properly rest it. It had already been almost a week since their brush with the thieves, so the last several days had proven to be even more stressful than every other part of their journey leading up to that incident. The lack of consistent shelter, electricity, and plumbing was taking its toll on them both. 

Camry sighed and dragged her feet through the dirt to put her short body between Ari and the sun. She folded her arms over her sweaty chest and leveled a dull stare out at the road, almost as if she was just waiting for someone to come along and ruin their mission in some other way. Ari glanced back over her shoulder and smiled gratefully but said nothing. She didn't need to.

Noon was approaching steadily and their water bottles were already running on empty. In the next moments of respite, Camry let her mind wander back to everything that had happened since Cuencamé. There had been the calls to her parents to tell them about the missing money-- she assumed the debit card had been cancelled right after-- and then to Saoirse to update her on their progress as well. Camry's battery afterward was dangerously low, so she had resigned herself to only using it for emergencies until she could find a public place to charge. 

Ari's ankle hadn't taken the running well, and she wore the brace all but constantly. This forced the two of them to walk slower than before. As much as Camry hated to think about it, she suspected that they would have already reached the capital had this never happened. Even so, the guilt of encouraging Ari to dance with her outweighed her anger toward the whole situation, and she couldn't bring herself to place blame on Ari even if she wanted to. 

Exchanging their money hadn't been easy, either. Whenever someone finally stopped avoiding eye contact long enough to hear Ari out, the conversation usually ended with disheartened apologies as whoever they were talking to didn't have much use for American currency. Eventually, with a very sparse dinner looming over their heads, they settled for far less of an equal trade than they should have and made sure to split the cash between one another in case they got robbed again. Ari's portion went back in her shoe, and Camry eventually got used to the edges of the bills poking her skin beneath the elastic band of her sports bra. 

The last phone call she had been able to make had brought some very unsettling news. Saoirse had all but managed to say, "The government knows you're in Mexico. Please be careful if you use your pow--!" before the call ended itself and Camry's cell phone went dead in her hand. 

"Hello?  _Hello?_  Seersh?" Camry yelled, not that it did her any good. She all but growled in frustration and shoved her phone into its side pocket of her backpack. "Great. Just great! We can't do our plan anymore!"

"Which one?" Ari asked from where she sat on the edge of a fountain. Her feet dangled in the tepid water and were starting to relax as her calluses were momentarily soothed. "And what did Saoirse say?" 

"She said that everyone knows Relle Phantom escaped to Mexico," Camry replied, her features drooping with despair. "This is such a nightmaaare...!"

"Oh," Ari said softly. "Yeah. So no street performing." In one of several brainstorming sessions, both girls had their hearts set on using some of their otherworldly abilities to attract crowds in large cities and hopefully get donations from the audience. Things like fire breathing, flashy gymnastics, and maybe even making things disappear had been at the top of Camry's skill set while Ari decided she could momentarily stop time to play tricks on the willing victims she picked on. All of that was out the window. If anyone recorded the performances and posted them online, it was all too likely that such a coincidence would catch the eye of the kind of people they wanted to avoid. 

One rumor spreading about Relle Phantom in disguise in Cuencamé, or Durango, or some other city they visited, and flying-- well,  _walking_ \-- under the radar would become a thing of the past. 

Their most honest way of making money wasn't possible anymore. Now it appeared that their survival was likely going to be based on doing exactly what had happened to them: pick-pocketing. The thought twisted their insides with an acidic flavor of dread. 'So much for being a hero...' Camry thought with a grimace. Dora had actually been the first one to call her that, if memory served, and the thought of disappointing her old teacher couldn't have depressed her more.

As heavy a mental load as all of that combined had become, it paled in comparison to what had happened at dawn that very day. Ari, bent over her ankle by the side of the road, furrowed her brow as the anger in her chest began to reach boiling temperatures. To the best of their knowledge, nothing had been done incorrectly: the locating spell should have been a complete success. There was nothing wrong with the sandy soil on the map, and the beetle Camry had caught had plenty of legs for pointing them in the right direction. Ari could all but recite the spell's incantation in her sleep after just over three weeks of saying it, so she couldn't have slipped up there.

So... why didn't it work? 

The beetle, pulverized by Ari's fingertips, should have rolled off of the central mound of dirt and pointed to the map. All of the other insects before had done the same, save for when Ari had tried to find her mother first. This time, though, resembled their first attempt more than any other. 

"I don't... understand," Ari, breathless and confused, said as she bent over the map and stared. One of the beetle's collapsed, iridescent wings peeked out of its crushed shell, but all of its legs were firmly curled in around its torso. It hadn't even rolled far enough to touch the discolored paper. 

Before Ari could say another word, Camry jumped to her feet to look for another insect and returned with two. Ari performed the spell again and again until there was no way it could be considered dawn anymore. Every single time, the bug failed to show them the way to her missing family. 

With the sun at their backs and climbing higher into the sky, Camry settled her hand on Ariadna's shoulder and was suddenly shaken off. Ari palmed at her damp eyes and shook her head. "I'm fine," she insisted. She felt her voice crack, and Camry heard it.

Neither one of them said much after that. 

Their trekking was bringing them closer to the last hint they had managed to get out of the divination spell, but after they reached it, what was next? How could they possibly hope to find Dude and Maria in a place as huge as Victoria de Durango all on their own? The city was on a multi-tiered floating acre and was home to nearly a million people when it  _wasn't_ peak tourism season. Ari's magical knowledge was so severely limited, and Camry couldn't risk revealing the presence of her undead persona, so their hands were all but completely tied. Now, with little to no money to rely on and no guarantee that they would find a safe place to sleep, their world was so much more overcast and grayer than reality let on. 

Camry sighed and moved to stand in front of Ari. She offered a hand down where Ari could see it, and the taller girl accepted the help in standing up. Time was running out on a clock neither one of them could see, so they couldn't afford to stop for too long. 

~*~

Joaquín Narváez couldn't believe how many close calls he had endured to get where he was. Asking his siblings for specific ingredients had been so stressful, especially since he had to act as nonchalant as possible and come up with fake reasons behind getting each item. His extraneous research to keep his seance project under wraps lasted well into several nights and even reached the point where his natural abundance of energy failed him. He woke up the following morning to find himself drooling on top of an open potions spell book. 

He had all the types of plant material and minerals, so all that was left to gather was the right spring water for keeping the spirit "calm and at bay," according to the journal. Still, this was  _Camry_ he was trying to contact-- was that part even necessary? The incantation was long and complex, of course, so he would want to practice that as much as possible to make sure he didn't misspeak. Starting over was not an option, especially since his siblings definitely suspected that something was up with him. That was okay, though. For all they knew about his inward personality, throwing himself headfirst into a project was just something he just liked to do from time to time. 

Though he didn't dare say it out loud, a tiny voice in the back of his brain kept asking him if all of this hyper-focused dedication made him more like a Slytherin or a Ravenclaw. 

He secretly kind of hoped he was a Slytherin... His hair would match. 

Preparations were drawing to a close, and that meant a new worry was beginning to weigh on his conscience. Suppose he managed to successfully jump over every hurdle this spell threw at him. Suppose his brothers and sisters never stumbled in on him and ruined all of his hard work. Suppose contact with Camry was possible this way, and he finally got through to her. 

What the hell was he even going to  _say?_  

He couldn't decide! Dude had hoped that focusing on the seance would give another part of his mind enough room to think over that problem in the background, but he was exactly where he had started out. 'Do I tell them to find me somewhere so they can meet my family? What if Camry thinks I'm under a spell of some kind and doesn't trust me? I wouldn't blame her-- not after what Kordelle put us both through, and not after Dad  _technically_ kidnapped me and Mamá. Should Ari even come here at all? Would she want to? Should I hatch an escape plan with Mamá so we can meet Ari and Cam somewhere safe? How would we get back to America after that?' 

Joaquín's hand, holding a short pencil against his third notebook for that week alone, froze midway through a word. When... When had the thought of going back to America become so...  _unappealing?_

Sure, sure, it wasn't like any country was without its faults-- Mexico included-- but... what was even there for him? 

School? No way. Paying attention in class was almost impossible, and so few of the standard subjects interested him. His grades at Bailey Lake High were average at best and wouldn't warrant any aid for college after he graduated, either. Here, he could study magic and figure out exactly what he liked to do. Magic was so much more amazing and tailored to his strongest suits. Even his conduit was remarkably rare and versatile among witchkind, so his options for a future were staggeringly vast.

His life back in America was far from easy or carefree. Just seeing how his mother's long hours working to support him and Ariadna wore her down took its own guilty toll on him. Marina might have been led by accident into making a panic-fueled decision seventeen years ago, but there was a chance all of that could be undone and left in the past. Their lives were so comfortable in Mexico, surrounded by all the half-siblings Joaquín never knew he had. After spending so much time with them all and getting to know each brother and sister better, a small part of him couldn't help but resent all of the lost time he--

'No, no, no. I promised I wouldn't think like that' Dude thought firmly while rolling his eyes. He had yet to finish the word he had been writing, however, and instead dropped his face into his left hand to cover his eyes. A few seconds later, he set the pencil down and his right hand joined in submerging his sight in darkness. 

If... If he was being  _completely_ honest with himself-- and, of course, that included digging down as deep as the buried hopes and dreams he had stuffed into his bone marrow-- there were really only two obvious reasons why he would ever want to go back to America long-term. And he couldn't even talk to them, or see them, or know if they were both safe. An embarrassed heat flashed to life in the apples of his cheeks, try as he did to block it. 

Why the hell did he have to have such fatal crushes? Dude knew just as well as anybody with a working brain that what he wanted was impossible. 

Camry was gay. She would never return the more-than-platonic feelings he had for her. And she was so smart, and resourceful, and adorable... Honestly, just the fact that they had become such good friends in the first place boggled his mind.

Saoirse was bi, but she was in a committed relationship and clearly happy within said relationship. On top of that, she was so far out of his league in virtually every possible category that he could never even hope to measure up to her. Her talent, affability, admirable dedication to her faith, and fearlessness were just a few of the things that Joaquín wished he could somehow emulate through himself.

It was true: if he would go back to America, it would be because he didn't want to be separated from Saoirse and Camry. They were his greatest and closest friends. The idea of spending even a significant chunk of time away from them churned his insides with acid. Three and a half weeks after being shuttled down to Mexico without even getting to say a proper goodbye, Dude could feel a strange cousin to loneliness expanding from deep in his heart. 

He missed them. He really, really missed them. Even with so much of what he had dreamed of in life suddenly right at his fingertips, the best birthday present he could have asked for was to see them again. 

Joaquín dragged his hands down his face and groaned low in his chest. Taking up the pencil once more, he flipped over to a new page near the back of the notebook and scrawled in giant, blocky letters:  **I AM A HUGE PAN IDIOT**. Upon finishing with filling in the last letter, he scrunched up his features and set to work erasing the bold self-deprecation. He couldn't get rid of all of it completely, especially when his eraser was so short, and the shadows continued to whisper what his thoughts screamed back at him. 

A part of him hated himself for developing these feelings. Being so close a friend while secretly wanting more felt dishonest. Another part of him hated the fact that he was so happy with just being their best friend;  _that_ was the part he feared the most. Joaquín knew that, above all else, there was no way in hell he could let either girl know about his crushes on them. Losing their friendship over something this meaningless was not worth the risk. He could be content with things staying the way they always have been, right? 

...  _right?_

'What if I can't?' he thought slowly. The air in his lungs froze with horror. 'What if... What if going back to America only makes this feeling worse? What if I do end up going back and it only ends with me being miserable-- or ruining everything the three of us have together?' 

Back in Bailey Lake, when their trio hugged in front of the competition venue, he hadn't been able to fully suppress his urge to be more affectionate than what a close friendship usually entailed. Dude had barely forced a blurted confession back down his throat in time to replace it with a simple "I have to go." Hell, even as he watched them leave his window later that same night, the threat of not seeing them for a while almost made his better judgment throw itself to the wind. 

Burying those internal thoughts only resulted in more misery, heartache, and guilt. 

Arms crossed on the desk in his room, he buried his face down on top of his papers and sighed. 'What the hell do I do now?' he asked himself. 

Waiting until he actually succeeded in making contact wasn't an option. It left too much up to chance, and the ambiguity hanging over his head would only cloud his judgment. 

He couldn't tell the girls how he felt. The inevitable awkwardness would only make him more miserable as they both distanced themselves from him in the end. It was hard to tell just how miserable not telling them would make him feel, but maybe it would be the lesser of two evils. 

Joaquín abruptly stood up and stormed out of his room without closing the door behind himself. Taking a walk, a jog, a run-- literally anything to get him out of his own head was preferable to stewing over this topic any longer. Lucas and Laia's house was East on the complex's 'compass,' with North being the main house where their father and Tía Elena lived. Joaquín jumped down from the front porch in one go and hit the ground running toward the fountain in the center of the intersected lawn. The cobblestone path he was on led right to it, and his bare feet made rough sounds against the unforgiving surface. When he reached the fountain, he settled down heavily on the rim of the lowest basin and swung his legs over to sink his feet into the cool water. 

The shock of such a change in temperature did wonders for clearing his head, but it didn't magically solve all the problems he was plagued by. 'Forget crushes... Ari should be here with the rest of us, no matter what.'

"Can't believe I didn't figure that out sooner," Joaquín muttered under his breath. Resting his forearms against his thighs and linking his hands, he hung his head for a brief moment before glancing to his right. What he saw crawling only inches away from his leg was surely going to haunt his nightmares for the next ten years. 

A spider, dark brown and with legs big enough to spread over more than the surface area of his palm, skittered in a beeline right for him. Joaquín would never be proud of the scream that was ripped out of him then, nor would he readily admit to the, " _What the shit?_ " he exclaimed immediately after. He threw himself back off the edge of the fountain and rolled to his feet, flinging water every which way with each jerky movement. 

He was only milliseconds from sprinting away, bare feet be damned, when a sputtering laugh rose into the air, making its owner's presence known behind him. Joaquín stared back over his shoulder at Laia, whose face was flushed from a lack of oxygen as she laughed and laughed. "O-Oh my god, ha!" she giggled, clutching her sides while bending forward at the waist. "I never-- heehee-- expected a reaction like  _that!_ "

"Laia, what the hell?" Joaquín yelled, obviously not amused if his embarrassed expression was anything to go by. "Did  _you_ put that spider there?"

She walked over to the fountain and lowered her hand, fingers extended as a bridge, to let the arachnid walk onto her. Though not as big as a tarantula, it was still a decent-sized spider and one that most arachnophobic people would likely faint at the sight of. "This is Ocho, my familiar. He's a Huntsman spider." 

"... You named your eight-legged familiar  _Ocho_ ," Joaquín said in a deadpan tone.

"I was  _five_  when I first summoned him!" was her indignant defense. "What, did you name  _yours_ Lefty and Righty?"

He sputtered at that, stuffing his hands into both pockets of his shorts. "Wha--? Hell no."

Laia's face split with a mischievous grin suddenly, and she swung Ocho dangerously close to her older brother's face. He jerked back and almost bent in half backwards with the effort of getting away from the spider. A shriek escaped his lips before he could stop it, too. "Arachnophobic, hm?" Laia hummed triumphantly. 

"Hey, quit it," he shot back. "I got bit when I was little, okay? I've always been uncomfortable around spiders ever since."

"Ocho wouldn't bite," she assured him. With one hand extended as far as possible to the side, she used her black harlequin opal eyes to follow along as Ocho crawled to her shoulder. "I mean, unless I wanted him to." 

Now hugging his upper arms in unease, Joaquín swallowed the thick lump lodged in his throat. "Cool, cool..." 

Laia smiled at Ocho rubbing his tiny head against her chin, but then settled a serious stare at her brother's face. "Look, I'm sorry I scared you that badly. I wanted to ask you about something that's been eating at me for a while now, though." 

"Uh, yeah, yeah, okay, sure-- but, uh, maybe can Ocho go away now?" he asked. "I can't really focus if I'm antsy about him." 

"Oh, don't be  _antsy_ ," she piped up in a chipper tone before it turned impressively sinister. Her long, straight hair formed a curtain around her shoulders, and as she spoke next Ocho peered around the edge to fix all eight eyes on Joaquín. "He thinks those are yummy."

"And I'm out! We can talk later," he announced, performing an about-face and beginning to walk stiffly back toward their house. 

"Wait, wait!" She lunged forward and latched onto his upper arm, stopping him in his tracks. When he glanced back at her, Ocho was gone. "I'm sorry. Really. Look, I... I wanted to ask you about your sister." 

Well, that had certainly come out of nowhere. Joaquín silently pivoted to look at Laia better, though even then it was hard to parse out the expression on her face. "I know we aren't supposed to ask you about her, but I just-- I overheard you talking to your mom on your first night here." Laia stumbled over her words without letting go of his arm like she was afraid he would leave without giving her answers. "And you said some stuff that I don't understand. Do you--?" 

Just then, a car they both recognized pulled up and around the curved driveway to park only a few meters away. Ricardo was in the driver's seat, and a slightly older man sat in the seat beside him. Laia released Joaquín's arm and buttoned her lips shut, much to his surprise. She had been so set on asking whatever it was she wanted to ask, but the presence of their father was apparently enough to completely stop her attempt. Was it because Ari was a forbidden topic?

And when had that been established? Did Ricardo go behind Joaquín's back to make sure none of his siblings asked about her? 

"Who's that?" he asked Laia in a soft voice.

"Tío Elías," she answered just as quietly. "He's Papá's older brother. He's blind, too." 

"Really?" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is getting looong~ so I'll leave it here and pick it up again in the next one. 
> 
> We now have yet another new character! Bet you all forgot about Ricardo's older brother, huh? Hopefully you'll find him to be interesting-- his intro here is kinda bland, I know, but ensuing content with him should hopefully make up for that. 
> 
> Please leave your thoughts in the comments, and a kudos is always appreciated too!


	24. Counsel

Elías's door opened with a sudden click, and a slender cane made of a deep reddish-purple wood emerged to tap against the cobblestones. Elías himself stepped onto the ground with purpose and closed the door with a loud slam, then accepted his brother's arm to help him walk in the right direction down the curved path. Laia started toward them, and Joaquín didn't hesitate to tag along just a step behind her.

The newcomer was roughly the same height as his younger brother, though the unexpected air of confidence he exuded seemed to give him a taller presence. His hair, dark brown to match the rest of the family's, was shot through with a few patchy streaks of silver, and he had noticeable smile lines around the corners of his eyes. His mustache was well-groomed and full, not to mention also doused in a scattering of grey hairs. Elías was most likely in his late forties or early fifties, so he seemed to have little trouble in getting around as long as he knew which way he was going. At such a distance, Joaquín couldn't tell if there was anything about his eyes that visibly indicated his blindness, but he didn't wear anything like eye patches or dark glasses. 

"Well, this wasn't exactly when and where I pictured you two first meeting," Ricardo said to his children as he and Elías drew closer, "but I'm glad I found you. Joaquín, this is your tío, Elías. Elí, meet Joaquín, my third oldest."

Elías put out a hand and smiled warmly, especially when his newest nephew readily accepted the handshake. The crow's feet deepened at the corners of his all but translucent white opal eyes. "Joaquín, I've been hearing all about you from the moment my plane landed. How've you been adjusting to living here?"

"It's been great," Joaquín answered as he released his uncle's hand. "A lot louder than I'm used to, that's for sure."

That got a little bit of a laugh out of Tío Elías. "Never a dull moment in our family. Alright, the suspense is killing me. I need to get a good look at you."

He lifted his hand and let it hover a bit, then found Joaquín's shoulder. From there, he drifted up and let the tips of his outstretched fingers trail over Joaquín's cheek, nose, brow, and forehead. The contact was feather-light and noninvasive, though it was strange to endure in silence. "Hmm, I can tell you've got the family nose. Very handsome freckles as well. Those must be your mother's cheekbones, though."

"You can tell all that just by touch?" he gasped. "Is that your conduit?"

"Yes," Elías answered. "The same as yours, isn't it?"

"Yeah!" 

Laia announced her presence then and eagerly hugged her uncle. After, the four of them continued toward the main house while making light chatter all the way. Elías asked Joaquín several friendly questions about his interests, though they were all phrased in such careful ways that it was clear he was trying to not accidentally bring up any mention of Ariadna or his life back in Bailey Lake. 'So, Dad managed to brief him during the car trip back, too... I wonder what else he already knows.' 

Joaquín knew that his father had mentioned an uncle a long time ago, but it hadn't really occurred to him that said uncle had been nowhere to be found throughout the last three and a half weeks. As more and more questions popped up in his mind, Joaquín felt his resolve to not blurt everything out begin to crumble. Had his been uncle born blind, or did it happen in some sort of accident? What was his job like? Where had he been all this time? Did he have a type of animal familiar, and did it act like a service animal when he needed it to? Did his conduit make reading Braille easier?

The opportunity to ask these questions didn't come for a long time, especially when his other siblings found out their uncle had returned from who-knows-where to visit the family for a few days. Each one of them was hellbent on updating him about the progress of their magical studies as well as their personal projects. Elías found himself in the odd position of a willing ragdoll as he was taken by the hand and led all over the property. He was happy to be shown everything and offered his own insight on the sorts of questions his nieces and nephews presented him with. From what Joaquín could glean as an outsider looking in, their uncle was like another teacher as well as a member of the family. 

'... Maybe he'll know a thing or two about seances' he thought carefully. The roadblock from there was figuring out exactly how to bring up the topic naturally without arousing any suspicion. Heaven only knew how difficult it had been to deflect all of Caesar's questions after Joaquín had gone to him for powdered rose blood blossoms and dried cempasúchil petals. 

With Caesar's specialization being in chemical reactions and potion-making, he naturally had a stockpile of hundreds of different ingredients in one of the underground workshops. Knowing that he was his best bet for gathering everything he needed for the seance, Joaquín had eventually sought out his eldest brother to do just that. Two of the last few things he needed were also the most important, especially since the powdered blood blossoms could only be from red roses. Unfortunately, it wasn't a very common ingredient, so Caesar had been hesitant to loan some out. 

"What spell are you practicing with this, anyway?" Caesar asked. The yellow paper packet labeled "BB: red rose" was in his hand, so close and yet so far away. He eyed his younger brother warily. 

"There's this anti-ghost potion I wanted to try brewing," Joaquín lied, quick and smooth. "Dad showed it to me. It needs powdered blood blossom, but I wanted to use roses because it's not going to smell very good in the end. I thought roses would help with that." 

"Why not use lavender instead, then?" he suggested, already turning around to reach for the glass jar with plenty of said reddish-purple powder inside. The wall of shelves was arranged in a loose pattern with all kinds of containers, all in varying sizes and shapes. Caesar was in the middle of a new project, so several spaces were empty behind him. "Lavender has a lot of other good properties besides smelling nice. You'd probably have an easier time practicing with it, too." 

"Nnno," Joaquín drawled as he fumbled for an excuse. "'Cause--! 'Cause lavender won't react well with the oils, I think. And the recipe recommended rose specifically." 

Caesar, still facing the shelves, paused. His brow furrowed, though only while his back was turned. "That's... funny. I've never heard of lavender not mixing well with anything except wormroot and grave soils. Which spell is this, again?" 

"Look, I  _promise_ I won't use too much of the rose powder," Joaquín pleaded with his hands clapped together. "Please? I really want this to work." 

Glancing back over his shoulder, Caesar let out a sigh and set down the jar of lavender powder. "Okay, fine. But seriously, don't use any more than you have to." He held out the packet and sent his sibling a stern look as he took it. "You'll be the one to ask Dad for more if we run out, and let me tell you: he won't be happy about it." 

"You got it!" Joaquín replied cheerfully, ever the human equivalent of a ray of sunshine. "Oh, what about marigold petals? Got any of those?" 

"Cempasúchils?" Caesar lifted an eyebrow even higher at that. "Those  _channel_ ghosts. They don't deflect them."

"I know-- it's for another research project. A different one. It's supposed to make it easy to track down ghosts when you don't have a mirror." He couldn't help mentally patting himself on the back for coming up with that so quickly. All of his extraneous research was really starting to pay off.

"Oh. Check the box on that shelf over there," Caesar said, pointing over to the wall on Joaquín's right. When the second ingredient was secure in his hands, he left with a wave and several words of gratitude. Caesar frowned and rested his forearms on the granite tabletop as he watched him leave the lab. Several different chemicals and elements were waiting to be combined in front of him, but they had been swiftly forgotten as soon as Joaquín had barged in and started asking such odd questions. 

After a few moments of silence, his Peruvian blue opal gaze fluttered down to rest on a clean glass beaker and the little brown arachnid that had hidden itself behind it the second Joaquín appeared on the scene. "You were right, Lai. He's interested in some weird stuff lately." 

Ocho crawled back into plain view and waved his front two legs in the air. "Now you see it?" Laia's voice asked through her familiar's tiny mouth. "Something's up, and I don't like it. He was asking me yesterday about the best way to draw perfect circles, too." 

Caesar slid a slip of paper laden with crushed salt off of a measuring scale and dumped its contents into the test tube suspended over an unlit burner. His eyes didn't move from the sight of the particles clouding up the liquid and dissolving away as he spoke. "I know you're worried, Lai, but I don't think he's doing anything 'wrong.' Just let him explore magic a bit. He wasn't raised with it like we were, so he's probably just excited. I know I would be."

"You don't share a house with him," 'Ocho' shot back. "You don't see him up at all hours of the night, taking notes and talking to himself. I think he's obsessed over something, Caesar!" 

He shot the spider a disbelieving look at that. "Don't you think called him 'obsessed' is taking it a bit too far?" 

"And all the books he's reading have to do with the undead," she continued as Ocho skittered forward to put himself directly in front of Caesar. "It's almost like... oh, my god."

"What?" 

"His birthday is coming up in a week and a half." Laia's voice was breathy and strained, as if the weight of her epiphany affected her physically rather than just emotionally. "And without... without Ariadna, too--" 

"Laia,  _stop_ ," Caesar said, his tone tight and unyielding. "You know what Dad said about bringing her up."

"But--!"

"Seriously, let this one go," he insisted before grabbing another test tube. Using a pipette, he extracted a few drops of the bluish liquid and dropped them into the same tube where he had dissolved the salt. "Talk to Dad if you're so worried about what he's doing. Or better yet: ask Joaquín directly." 

"Dad got mad at me when I tried to tell him," Laia mumbled. Through all eight of Ocho's eyes, she watched Caesar turn on the Bunsen burner and begin to bring his concoction to a boil. "He's still sad about Ariadna." 

"Look, Laia," Caesar groaned, closing his eyes while massaging the bridge of his nose for a few seconds. "I don't know what to tell you. Joaquín has an interest in ghosts, and that's not the worst thing a witch can take interest in. Talk to him about it. Maybe he'll show you what he's been working on." 

He turned back to his project at that, and with a sigh Ocho started to skitter away across the lab table, no doubt on his way back to his mistress. Laia, back in her room and sitting cross-legged on her bed, opened her eyes and relaxed her tense shoulders. Her lungs ached; talking through a vessel always called for more air than her lungs were used to giving. "Fine," she grumbled, her brow low over her black opal eyes. "I'll ask him myself."

Of course, that resolve had wavered dangerously upon finding him putting his feet in the fountain a day later, and her attempt to talk to him about his sister was thwarted by their uncle's arrival. After getting lectured about leaving the dearly departed in the past, "where they belong," as her father put it, gathering up the courage to try again was difficult. There was no telling if she could go unheard while asking Joaquín about the forbidden subject, especially since Ricardo's conduit was in hearing. 

'I have to ask him before his birthday' Laia vowed as from her window she watched Joaquín and Miguel kick a soccer ball back and forth across the lawn later that same afternoon. 'That gives me a week, I think. August 7th. I can do that, can't I?' 

~*~

"Alright, our first order of business: Ari," Camry said in an overly dramatic voice as she faced Ari on a park bench. It had taken them several days, but at long last they were on the outskirts of Durango's capital city. The floating acre above their heads was miles and miles across, blocking out a huge swath of the sky and casting down a blessed patch of deep shade on the earth. It wasn't common for tiered cities like this one to expand too far underneath their floating acres, but that left plenty of room for large parks to be built away from where the population crowded together. "It is one week until your seventeenth birthday."

"I know," Ari said. "I... can't believe we've been here in Mexico for almost a month already. This mission is taking so long." 

"Well, I mean, you're right about that," Cam conceded while awkwardly rubbing the back of her neck. "But that's not what I was getting at. We've been working really hard to try and find your family, and like you said, we've been at it for a while. Maybe we ought'a take a break for your birthday and just spend it on doing fun things, y'know?"

Ari frowned at that. "I don't know... I hate the idea of wasting another day when we could be searching. And it's not just my birthday, either. I'd rather not spend it without him." 

"We can still look!" Camry said quickly, backpedaling quickly in case she had accidentally touched a sad nerve. "But we owe it to ourselves to enjoy a little bit of our trip. You owe it to yourself more than anyone else. And since we'll be searching without that spell from now on, we probably need to stay in one place for longer anyway."

As much as she wanted to protest that point, Ari knew she was right. The spell was a bust. Several attempts over the last few days had proven it wasn't working anymore, which left them with the only option of going around towns and asking everyone they ran into if they had seen the two people in their pictures. It was exhausting work, especially with the late July sun beating down on them constantly, and that exhaustion showed. The bags under Camry's eyes were prominent beneath her fresh sunburns, and Ari knew she didn't look any better despite her noticeably darker skin color. Fate had not been kind to them in the last week.

With her shoulders sloping downward in defeat, Ari sighed. "You have a point." 

Camry smiled at the small victory. 'That wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. She really must be getting worn down, though.' 

"And I want to spend a decent bit of time here in the capital," she continued, her index finger pointed up at the floating acre above. "I mean, where else would we find so many people all in one place? And it looks like there's a festival going on, too."

"I looked it up earlier," Ari supplied as she leaned back on the bench and extended her aching feet out as far as she could. "It's a month-long independence day festival. Supposed to end the day after our birthday." 

"Ooh, cool!" Camry gasped. "Then I can probably find you a good present before it's over!"

"A present?" Ari echoed. "C'mon, Cam, don't get hung up on that idea for long. We're barely gonna be able to eat on what money we have right now. And everyone knows prices get jacked up during events like these." 

"Not so much at the end, when everyone is trying to get rid of what they have left," she pointed out. "But you're right: we really need to figure out how to get more money."

"Street performing is out," Ari said, ticking that item off on her left thumb. "You already said no to pick-pocketing. Are you  _sure_ , though? I've been really practicing with stopping time. You distract, and I stop time to make sure we aren't caught while I go through their wallets." 

Camry grimaced at the idea, and not for the first time. "I think we should set that one aside. For a really desperate situation." 

"Fine," Ari said with a quiet huff. "We can't get jobs when we need to keep moving from place to place, either."

"Yeah..."

"Hmmm..."

A tense silence fell between the two teens, and after a moment of this Camry reached into her backpack's side pocket to pull out one of her printed copies of the picture of her and Dude on the night of the dance competition. When his preserved smile had once made her smile as well, it had a different effect after several weeks apart. Looking at it only reminded her of truly sunny days and happiness, and even the height of summer paled in comparison to that. It had been almost a month since she had last seen him in person, and not knowing if she was going to ever going to find that brightness again scared her. For all the sunlight around her, she might as well have been trekking beneath the heavy shadow of a floating acre all this time across Mexico. 

Ari glanced sidelong at her friend and rested her chin in her hand, elbow planted into the top of her right thigh. Cam was oblivious to being watched-- she was just that focused on the photograph. One corner of Ari's lips quirked up and she leaned over to enter Camry's personal bubble. "Looking for clues, Sherlock?" she asked. 

Cam squeaked and nearly dropped the photo in her haste to shove it aside. "Wha--? Wha-- No! N-No... just... in-inspiration," she admitted slowly, her lips moving so little in her mumbling that she had to sign it in order to be understood. After so many weeks beside her, Ari had grown used to her fits of intense bashfulness, but her reaction to such a simple question seemed... odd. Out of place, in fact. It's not like she had teased her about a crush or anything, but her cheeks were aflame with a similar kind of embarrassment and her stutter had returned-- well, Ari assumed it did, anyway. She usually didn't have this much trouble reading her lips otherwise. 

"Inspiration?" Ari wondered aloud, though she was also making sure she had read that correctly. 

"I know it's kinda dumb," Camry sighed as she slid the picture back into its place. "I just... was hoping something would hit me, you know? I don't know a damn thing about making money, especially in a foreign country."

"Too bad neither of us were born in a traveling circus," Ari said somewhat to herself.

Camry's downtrodden expression suddenly morphed into one of deep thought. She blinked several times and covered her mouth for a moment. Beneath her palm, her lips moved silently. Then she used that same hand to casually point back at Ariadna. "Did... you just say a 'circus?'" 

"Yeah?" she replied. "Y'know, like those ones with the carnival games that always beat you no matter how good you think you are at them." 

"Oh my god," Cam whispered. She slapped her hands together and shot to her feet. "That's it! We use carnival games to cheat people out of their money!"

"It is a festival," Ari agreed as a grin slowly spread across her face. "But, which one--  _The cup game!_ " 

"The what game?" 

Now Ari was on her feet, too. "You know! The one where they put something under one of three cups and move them around really fast?" As she spoke, she pantomimed doing exactly that. "I can stop time to switch up which cup has the thing under it if they're about to get it right!"

"That's amazing!" Camry squealed, her arms flung out to either side to hug Ari. She didn't speak again until they had pulled apart. "Oh, oh, oh--! And if they lose, they have to tell us if they've seen Dude or your mom!"

"We'll canvass the city in no time!" 

"You're a genius, Ari!" 

The plan was in motion. All they had to do now was find their cups and fancy item to hide under said cups, and the search could begin anew. 

  
~*~

It was rather lucky for Joaquín that his uncle had unexpectedly arrived since it meant more of his siblings were distracted with catching him up on the latest news. He hadn't had a chance to ask Tío Elías about performing a seance, but that wasn't exactly necessary anymore. After all, he was so close to being done, so why bother risking exposure so close to the finish line?

Everything lay before him, measured in exact ratios according to the journal's instructions. The dried cempasúchils, their sunny orange color slightly dulled with time, had been spread out and arranged around the ornate circle drawn in chalk on the surface of his bedroom's desk. He had made special rosewater from the powdered blood blossoms and spring water infused with exact ratios of sea salt, blessed iron oxide, and alkaline grave soil; the odd-smelling mixture was measured out and dripped in between the petals, then gently pulled toward the center with a long sewing pin so it formed a radiating pattern. 

The chalk had been easy enough to find, but whittling it down to such a fine point that Joaquín could then correctly draw the right sigils inside the circle had proven itself to be a more difficult challenge. The fine tip kept snapping off and threatened to destroy his progress, but after a lot of scrubbing and unnecessary muffled cursing he had somehow managed to make the symbols look more or less like the ones in the journal. Its circumference was close to that of a dinner plate, so as long as this worked out like he hoped, it was all the surface area he would need. This particular seance method was meant to open a bridged connection between him and his target. He was mostly concerned with just having a large enough space to see Camry face to face and be heard. 

Finally, the seance called for an offering that would undoubtedly appeal to the ghost. That part was easy enough to find: all Joaquín had to do was raid the pantry in the main house and grab a hunk of dark baking chocolate without being seen. He knew Camry's favorite candy was dark chocolate, so it was definitely going to work. 

Yes, it was going to work! Joaquín stood up from his green desk chair and slowly let his gaze roam over every detail that he had so painstakingly toiled over for the last two weeks. The spread before him looked just like it did in the journal, albeit the chocolate was a bit out of place when the instructions recommended several darker and weirder substitutes. Locks of hair and blood from various animals were the least gross options. 'Really says a lot about what witches from back then thought of ghosts' he thought to himself. Of course, he had to amend that with, 'Well, it's not like  _that_  particular topic has changed much since then, either.' 

Now all that was left was to wait until everyone had gone to bed. Once the rest of the complex was asleep, he would attempt the spell and finally make contact with Camry and Ari. Just the thought of hearing from them, seeing them again, was enough to stir up a storm of anticipation in his stomach. 

Wait. There was another reason for the brewing storm-- were those  _footsteps_ coming fast down the hall?  

Joaquín spun to look at his bedroom door and gasped at the sight of a huge brown spider clinging to the wooden surface. That was Ocho, wasn't it? What the hell was he doing in Joaquín's room? 

Those footsteps came to a hard stop on the other side of the door, and the knob was wrenched open with an urgent force. "Joaquín, what do you think you're doing?" his father bellowed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh oh. 
> 
> So... so close, my boy...
> 
>  
> 
> Kudos and comments are always welcome and appreciated!


	25. Emblem

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RECAP: 
> 
> Those footsteps came to a hard stop on the other side of the door, and the knob was wrenched open with an urgent force. "Joaquín, what do you think you're doing?" his father bellowed.

Shit, shit, shit! Ricardo was in his room, and judging by the expression on his face, he had an idea of what was going on. Laia stood back further in the hall, looking in and struggling to get her breathing under control. Had she run to get their father and tell him what she had seen? 

"Da-Dad, look, it's not a big deal," Joaquín tried to say, but he was quickly cut off.

"Is it true you're trying to seance with spirits?" Ricardo demanded to know. Mouth frozen open, Joaquín couldn't make a sound in his defense. His father blew past him to see what was on his desk, where every bit of incriminating, indisputable evidence sat on display in plain sight. "Oh, mijo... Why would you want to do this?"

"Look," he tried to say again, "I--! I..." 

Joaquín trailed off and turned his gaze to the carpet under his feet. What the hell could he possibly say? The truth was out of the question; just bringing up Crom Cruach and Relle Phantom on his first night in Mexico had shown exactly what his father thought on the subject of ghosts. 

As the tense seconds ticking by started to weigh on his conscience, Laia spoke up in a meek voice from the doorway. Ocho stood on her shoulder, partially hidden by the straight curtain of her stunningly symmetrical hair. "Joaquín... I know you miss her, but you can't talk to Ari again..." 

Hearing her was like a light bulb getting struck by lightning in his brain.  _Of course!_  "Why not?" he barked as anger morphed his voice into something he didn't often hear. "Why shouldn't this work?" 

"Your tone, Joaquín," Ricardo warned him. "Laia was right to tell me what you were doing, so don't get mad at her. A seance this advanced is dangerous, and it can create a way for ghosts to find their way in past the barrier around the mountain." 

He settled a hand on his son's shoulder, and when Joaquín tried to shake him off he held firm. "Mijo, you  _can't_ contact Ari." 

" _Why. Not,_ " he asked again, though in a softer tone this time. Arms crossed over his chest, he refused to look at either of the intruders. 

"Witches don't leave behind ghosts when they die," Ricardo said gently. "There wasn't any chance that this would work, even if you did everything perfectly. It would only invite danger into our home." 

Still averting his gaze, Joaquín's eyes widened at the new information. Witches weren't capable of becoming ghosts after death? Well, that actually did make a certain amount of sense. If a witch became a ghost, they were at risk of spilling their secrets to the entire ghost population. That eons-long enmity wouldn't be anything like it was today if that was the case.

Ricardo retracted his hand and used it to scratch the crown of his head. " _Ay_... Maybe I was getting your hopes up by showing you the books about ghosts. Mijo, I don't want you reading any more of these." 

"What? Dad, no!" he protested only to be shot down immediately.

"I mean it," Ricardo insisted. "I clearly need to teach you more about the danger of dabbling in these topics before you can be trusted to learn any more. We also need to have a talk about how you're processing your grief." 

"... I'm fine," he grumbled at that. 

Ricardo sighed and shook his head before patting his son's shoulder twice. "This is my professional opinion as a therapist, so you know it's true: no, you're not." 

~*~

The ride on the lift up to the floating acre was crowded to capacity when Ari and Camry jumped onboard first thing the next morning. Their dusty backpacks were heavy, but their hearts had found a reason to be lighter. Deep in the bottom of Ari's pack, the spell book sat beneath a pile of her dirty clothes that were in serious need of washing. The day she decided against performing the divination spell had been a strange one, but the decision had also somehow freed her. When Ari stowed the book away for good, she had felt a dismal part of her soul slough off. 

She had never been too good at relying on people, right? That's because there had always been books to rely on instead. But her dependency on the spell book had only gotten her so far, and it was time to truly throw herself into this partnered alliance with Camry. Just the thought of the well-meant scam they were about to pull off left her giddy with excitement. 

Plenty of tourists were mixed in among all the locals attending the festival, and more than once Camry heard languages other than Spanish spoken in her vicinity. She wouldn't admit it out loud, but her homesickness had grown significantly over the last few days, and listening to something that reminded her of home was a strange facsimile of a breath of fresh air. After all, she had to make sure her French skills hadn't been totally replaced out of the necessity to learn Spanish phrases to get by from day to day.

"Who was that?" Ari asked when Camry, beaming happily, turned back around and started toward her friend. She had to sign to make sure she was understood over the hubbub of the crowds pressing in from all sides. 

"Just some tourists from Canada," Camry answered, though her beaming smile seemed rather bright for such a simple statement. "They gave me advice for the best spots to mill around during the day since they've been here for a little while already. And I got to speak in French the whole time!"

She reigned herself back visibly then and added, "I hope I didn't sound awful..." 

Ari responded to that by clapping a hand on her friend's shoulder. "We both know I am not the judge of that." Camry grinned back at her and laughed a single, silent note. 

"True, true. C'mon, let's go find some cups somewhere." 

After snatching three green plastic cups when the workers at a lemonade cart turned their backs, Camry found Ari staring at a jewelry stand that glittered brilliantly in the steady sunlight. She had to wave a hand in front of Ari's eyes to get her attention, which startled her before she spun around. "Hey," Cam said while shaking the cups back and forth indicatively as if to say, 'Lookie what I found!' 

"Oh, great job," Ari replied. "I was just thinking about what we could use as the item the players would try to find." She nodded back toward the stand. 

"You want me to steal something  _that_ expensive?" Camry gasped. Her free hand slapped against her cheek, but Ari grabbed it and forced it down to her side. 

"No, no, no," she groaned. "But maybe we can buy something pretty from here. It'll be hard to get attention if we don't have something interesting to look at. How much money do you have left?" 

With a thoughtful frown on her lips, Cam passed the cups over to Ari and dug around in her bra for a few seconds to grab what few bills she still had stored away. Even by combining everything there was between the two of them, they weren't quite able to afford anything more expensive than some of the crystal beads glittering in a bowl at the edge of the stall's table. A pendant without a chain was an option, but buying one would cut a deep gouge in their food money. 

"Look, I'll trust whatever decision you make, Ari," Camry said as she glanced down at their meager savings. "We're gonna be in a tight pinch, no matter what we do."

Ari didn't answer right away so her lips could move silently as she mulled it over. Then she met her friend's eyes and eased the money out of Cam's hands. "Can you think of a safe place to hide it when we're not using it?" she asked.

"Yeah, 'course," Camry answered with a one-shoulder shrug. 

"Okay." Ari sucked in a deep breath and let it out all at once through her mouth. "Okay, let's do it." 

Haggling with the vendor didn't really do much in their favor, but by visibly looking like the pair of poor hitchhikers that they were, Ari and Cam managed to get a small discount on the pendant they picked out. The vendor was even kind enough to throw in one of her cheaper chains for a few more pesos, which Ari pocketed as an afterthought. If anything, wearing the charm as a necklace would be a great way to remember this escapade. 'Maybe Mamá would like it for a present' Ari thought to herself. 

With a scavenged crate and ratty blanket as a table and cloth, their attraction was finally open for business. Ari wrote out a couple of phrases in Spanish for Camry so she could practice what to call out to any passersby. While she took charge in getting the attention of tourists and locals alike, Ari manned the table itself. Seated on the low stone border surrounding an ancient-looking tree, she practiced moving the cups as she waited for their first customer. 

Only time would tell if this was going to work. Even as a witch with power over time itself, Ari wished she could say for sure if their plan would help them rake in enough money to get by. 

~~

"We really started to gather a crowd close to the end, huh?" Camry said from the other side of the campfire burning in the darkness of the waning day. Seated with her legs crossed and her pack beside her, she tossed a few more dry sticks onto the blaze and sent up a plume of scattered sparks. 

With how the city was beginning to settle into nightfall, Ari didn't have to see by the flames to read Camry's lips. Just like how she had begun to hone her temporal talents since their trip started, her tolerance for listening to the present as well as the past was beginning to strengthen as well. The city was just mellow enough to not cause a headache, so she took advantage of that by dipping her toe in and putting an ear to the world around her. 

"I guess we did, for a little bit," she admitted. "I think if we can keep up that much energy and keep the people coming, we might be able to spend a few nights in an actual motel before we move on to the next city." 

"That sounds  _amazing_ ," Cam gushed, clenching her fists in front of her chest with gusto. "I'd love to finally take a shower and wash our clothes again, too. I had no idea my hair could get this, uh...  _greasy_." 

Ari smirked at that. "You've clearly never had your water shut off for a whole week before. But, y'know, I've never exactly gone on a month-long backpacking trip before, either." 

"I can't believe it's been a whole month already," Camry murmured. She sucked in a sharp breath suddenly and glanced over to gauge Ariadna's neutral expression. "I mean-- No, I know it hasn't been-- Ah, crap. I'm sorry." 

"What for?" she asked with a confused tilt of her head. The motion made her ponytail slip off of her shoulder and fall straight down her back. 

"I don't know," Cam groaned while covering her eyes and slouching forward. "I just... Argh, I didn't mean to sound like I was reminding you of how long it's been since you've seen your family. I really miss them, too." 

The light of their fire was small and barely provided any warmth. Concealed in an alleyway with a painted metal trash can for a bit of privacy, both girls got a strange sense that they were in a cave of some kind. Tall walls of two stores rose up on their left and right sides, and the sounds of a lively bar drifted across the street. Cicadas buzzed in the distance, and the smattering of thin clouds did little to hide the seven moons high above. 

Taking up a small stick, Ari poked at the fire to turn over some of the uncharred wood. "It's okay, Cam. I know what you meant." 

"We're going to find them," she said immediately, her voice firm with determination.

"I know," Ari replied. "I haven't given up yet."

She sat up straighter and audibly popped her back before settling back down into an easy slouch again. "Sure would be  _nice_ if someone could give us a clue soon, though. Now that asking around is all we have, it's gonna be harder to keep moving." 

"I can still sense witches when they're nearby," Camry reminded her quickly. "Maybe we should try exploring farther into the city tomorrow." Ari agreed, and silence reigned for a few peaceful moments. The largest of the flames flickered out in a puff of smoke only to be brought back with the addition of more fuel and a little help from Camry's undead power. 

Just when it seemed like they were done talking and would start to get ready to sleep, Ari spoke up. "Cam, can I ask you something?" 

"I think we've spent enough time together by now that you don't really need to ask if you can," she answered with a soft giggle. "What's up?"

"Why do you think my brother hasn't contacted us yet?" The end of her singed stick twirled idly against the cracked ground in front of her crossed legs. Ari didn't look up to try and see the response she was hoping for, and instead her pale, opalescent gaze remained fixed on the shimmying dance of the tiny campfire. "It's been two weeks."

Camry parted her lips to reply but found the words had caught in her throat. "Uh... W-Well..." 

It was a good question, and this wasn't the first time it had crossed her mind, either. Two weeks had to be enough time to get a message out to someone, right? Even if calling or texting weren't options, a witch must have so much more at their disposal. 

Still, there had to be a good reason for his silence.

"He's... probably still trying to," she began slowly. "I mean... what if his-- y-your-- dad isn't letting him have access to the outside world right now? He might just be stuck." 

"I guess," was Ari's unenthusiastic response. She still didn't look up from the fire. After a handful of seconds, she tossed her stick down into the center of it and watched as it was slowly consumed by the heat. 

"You..." Camry said with hesitation, "... You don't think he's ignoring us, do you? That can't be it. He would never."

"No, I know." Ari sighed and dropped her chin into her hands. "I'm just worried that vision I told you about was actually just in my head. What if it didn't really happen?" 

Cam set her jaw and slapped both palms against the ground behind her to lean back. "As someone who knows next to nothing about magic, I really want to say that wasn't just in your head, Ari. It felt real to  _you_ , right?"

"Yeah, I mean, it was weird, but it didn't feel all that much like a dream," she admitted. The pendant they were using for their scam dangled from around her neck; its design of a crescent moon surrounding a sun with a turquoise stone set in the center easily reflected the dying firelight when she hunched forward. "But why hasn't it happened again? It would if it could, right? And we haven't heard a single thing from him all this time. It feels like I'm going crazy!"

She flinched and curled in on herself when Camry put a quick finger to her lips as a warning. The half-ghost glanced around the trash can to peer across the street. Rousing music continued to spill through the open doors and windows, but no one's attention seemed to have been drawn their way. 

Even so, Camry put out the fire with a sharp wave of her hand and sucked the residual heat into herself where it could filter out into the night air safely. "You're not going crazy, Ari," Camry assured her in a gentle tone. "You're just worried and getting tired of not seeing results. Trust me, I know exactly how you feel."

They settled down side by side with their backs against the same wall then. Above their heads, a slew of posters for various missing children fluttered against their bindings every time a breeze drifted through the alleyway. Their backpacks were locked into place in their laps, and Ari's left arm linked with Camry's right to ensure neither girl would separate from the other. When Cam tapped on the back of Ari's hand, the deaf teen reactivated her magic to listen. 

"I just wanted to tell you that I think you're incredibly strong for sticking with this mission for this long," Camry said earnestly. Her cheeks' blush was pale in comparison to most of her other past blushes, but the dusty pink still managed to glow in the dark ever so slightly. "Seriously, I don't think I would've made it half as far without you. Not even a sprained ankle is slowing you down all that much." 

"It's healing," Ari sputtered. She leaned into their contact and snuggled into the warmth of Camry's volcanic core. Her eyes started to drift shut when she spoke again. "But... thanks, Cam. I know you didn't expect to be out here this long, but I'm really glad you haven't let me give up yet."

Another question lingered on her tongue, and try as she did to swallow it for another day, it surged up and out of her mouth before she could stop it. "So, uhm, I was wondering something." 

Cam hummed a single note. Ari felt it more than heard it. "What are we going to do once we find my mom and brother?"

Ah, yes, the dilemma of the future that plagued her anxiety at any given moment. What  _were_ they going to do once they managed to find their two specific needles in this country-sized haystack? In the entire month she had had to think it over, Camry had yet to find an option that seemed like the "right" one.

"I... don't know. I'm sorry," she whispered. "Uhm, can we go to sleep and talk about this tomorrow?" 

As much as Ari wanted to press the matter, she pursed her lips in silence and shut her eyes. "Sure. Sleep well, Cam." 

"You, too, Ari." 

~*~

Word traveled impressively fast on the mountain. In mere moments, the escort to his father's private office morphed into something of a walk of shame. Under the half-hidden eyes of his siblings, Joaquín could feel his face burning from the pity and confusion they radiated. He couldn't help but recall the exact feeling from all of the times he had been sent to the principal's office throughout his school life. 

After arriving at the main house and stepping into the office, Ricardo bade his son to sit on the leather couch pressed against the left wall. Joaquín obeyed, albeit with a sullen expression on his face the entire time. His hands remained firmly crossed over his chest as well. The door was shut but not locked, and Ricardo sent a sad look across the spacious room. 

His large desk was made of light-colored wood and kept in good condition beneath the clutter of papers and books. Two large black computer monitors rose up from behind a hefty stack of spell books; their tower and keyboard were likely hidden away below. A few locked filing cabinets were pressed against the wall behind Ricardo's manager chair, and two tall windows let an abundance of sunlight into the room. Framed family photos filled up most of the free room left over, but a quick glance at the space above the door frame offered Joaquín a view of the clan crest he had started to notice everywhere around the complex. 

Its pattern was of a simple sun bisected by a line in the center. Two swirls, each one spiraling in the opposite direction from the other, filled the half-circles of the sun while pointed spires surrounded the entire symbol. When it wasn't carved over doorways or etched into strategically-placed cobblestones embedded in the courtyard, the emblem could be found on cupboard doors, shingles on rooftops, and even doodled in the margins of his siblings' notebooks. 

"I know you don't want to talk about it, mijo, but your sister's death--" Ricardo began carefully only to cut himself off when he saw the look on his son's face. No longer folding his arms, his hands were braced on his knees while he stared at the floor and blinked rapidly over and over. Was he holding back tears? 

Without another word, Ricardo crossed the room and slowly sank down onto the cushion beside Joaquín. He hesitated to reach out at first, but when he wasn't rebuffed he settled his hand lightly on Joaquín's upper back. It was a gradual shift, but soon Ricardo had his son in a side hug and was finding himself being hugged back in return. "Mijito, you don't have to say anything right now, but please don't keep everything inside." 

Hugging his father was... different. New, of course, and strange, but different. If asked about it, Joaquín would have to say it was different in a good way. 

"I just... don't want to have a birthday without her," he choked out through a sudden onslaught of hot tears rolling down his cheeks. His resolve to keep the truth about Ari a secret until after his birthday party was dangerously close to crumbling, and he could feel the pending admission on the tip of his tongue. Only the threat of angering his father with his lying kept it in check, especially as he was still exploring this level of familial intimacy with him. 

"No one does," Ricardo reassured him in a gentle whisper. "I know you miss her, mijo. We all do." 

"Even though you never met her before?" Joaquín's words stammered around his tearful hiccuping.

"Especially because of that," he answered. "I love all of you the same amount, even Ari." There was a break in the conversation to let Joaquín just cry out his tension and grief. It was like the floodgates had broken down, and everything that had settled like a ball and chain around his heart was struggling to stay put. He so wanted to spill everything-- to just let it all out and not look back-- but the only thing that saved him from doing so was the fact that talking coherently while crying is incredibly difficult. 

Ricardo beckoned toward his desk, and a drawer popped open to let a box of tissues float out and over to the couch. In the back of his mind, Joaquín wondered if his confiscated phone was somewhere inside the desk. "Here, mijo," Ricardo said as he grabbed the box out of the air. Nose blown and eyes wiped, Joaquín sucked in a deep breath and let it out in a rush. 

"Thanks," he murmured, the used tissue now a crumpled ball in his hand.

"Do you want to tell me a little bit about Ari?" Ricardo asked. "Or do you think that would make you sadder?"

He knew she wasn't dead, but the last time they had been apart for anywhere close to this long was when Crom Cruach had stolen away his only family for almost half of a year. Back then, Joaquín couldn't have known he would see his mother and sister ever again. Somehow, the guilt of knowingly keeping himself and his twin apart now made the emotions in his heart hurt more than they did back then. 

Still, maybe talking about it would help ease some of the burden... 

"Well... she's-- she was a huge bookworm," Joaquín began. "Ari loved to read as much as possible. When we shared a room, we had a curtain up between our beds so I could sleep while she read at night."

It was such a simple act to talk about her, but doing so was the perfect balm for the aching sunburn of his homesickness. By the time he had exhausted all of the best stories he had regarding Ari, Joaquín couldn't help but feel cleansed of so much of his stress and heartache. Ricardo was an attentive audience throughout, laughing along with his son when the tale carried a humorous twist. Of course, the last story he got to tell was about the reunion of the Hinojosas, Mahadeos, and Dowells after the catastrophe last winter. 

"It was hard being so upbeat all of the time," Joaquín admitted quietly, a new but yet unused tissue crushed in his hand. "That's kinda what it feels like now: not getting to at least know she's okay, putting on a happy face 24/7. It was so awesome to finally find her and Mamá again, too. And then Mamá almost lost her  _mind_ when she met Mrs. Sadie. I totally forgot to tell her that I was best friends with her favorite cooking show host's daughter! Ugh, I miss her, too. And Saoirse. Did I ever tell you about Camry and Saoirse? They're amazing." 

"No, I don't think you've mentioned them to me yet," Ricardo replied with a curious tilt to his brow. His emotional affinity was always spot-on, and something about mentioning these two girls had a very profound and deep effect on his son. "They're your friends back in America?" 

After talking about them for a few more minutes, an idea struck Joaquín out of the blue and he blurted out, "I can show you pictures if I had my phone, you know." To his forcibly restrained delight, Ricardo rose from the couch to rifle through his desk drawers and extract exactly what Joaquín had hoped to see: his cell phone. It was predictably dead after being stowed away for an entire month without being on a charger, but a quick burst of Joaquín's energy magic restored its battery to 100%. 

Unfortunately, as soon as his phone came online, he saw that the top of his screen read "No Service" in words that were too understated for just how frustrating a message it was. Even by stalling for time by showing off his favorite group photos of him and his friends, him and his twin, and of the different places he liked to go to in Bailey Lake, his phone couldn't find a single bar of service up on the mountain. He almost didn't even care when his father took back his phone to put it away again. 

Even so, he now knew where his phone was again. If he could get it back and hide it until an opportunity to leave the mountain arose, there was a chance he could finally get in touch with Ari and Camry. They had to be worried sick, especially since he still hadn't contacted either one of them since that odd dream. 

"Alright, mijo. Do you feel better now?" Ricardo asked after closing the drawer with a muffled clicking sound. 

"Yeah, I do. Thanks, Papá," Joaquín answered. He had long since stopped crying, and the heat from his sinuses was gradually fading from his complexion. That was the first time he had called his father that, and it didn't go unnoticed. With one final hug and a kiss planted on his son's hair, Ricardo sent him off with a promise that his siblings would be asked not to bring up the seance incident. Joaquín sincerely doubted that everyone would avoid the topic, but it was at least a nice thought. In turn, Joaquín asked that he be allowed to talk about Ari to them and answer their questions, and Ricardo accepted. 

Before closing the office door, he seemed to have a thought and paused in the doorway. "Unless you were hoping for something different, how does a trip into town sound for your birthday? The Independence Day festival won't be over until the day after, and I'm sure you're tired of being cooped up on the mountain after this long." 

A reckless grin split the teen's face. "That sounds like a great idea! I'd love to see more of Mexico while I'm here." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *rubs hands together evilly* It's all coming together, my little birdies... So please, leave your predictions for what will happen next in the comments below! A vote never hurts, either~ 
> 
> I'm starting my 4th year of college pretty soon, so I'm trying REALLY hard to finish as much of this story as possible before then. Thanks so much for your continued support for this project, and I hope you're enjoying yourself as much as I am! See you in the next chapter!


	26. Exploration

Time really does fly by when you're having fun. Before either girl knew it, three full days had passed since setting up their cup game scam in the center of one of Durango's plazas. Even if it was mostly in small bills and coins, their stockpile of funds was steadily growing. Unfortunately, their hopes for hearing anything about Dude were steadily declining as well. No one seemed to have a clue as to his or Maria's whereabouts. Contestants of the cup game weren't the only sources they checked, either; whenever Ari needed a break to replenish her magic reserves, she and Camry walked through the festival and showed their photographs to the people they met along the way. 

Of course, it wasn't all bad. Festivals are meant to be happy occasions! Even drenched with the heartache of being separated from her family, Ari still found the energy within herself to tease and make jokes with her companion whenever the opportunity struck. 

A stall underneath a patterned canopy in particular caught her eye on the third day of their visit to the capital, and Ari cheerfully steered Camry closer by nudging her side. "C'mon, it looks like they're giving out free samples over here," she said. The thought of free food was enough to make the blonde a willing sheep to herd, but that willingness dried up the second she saw what exactly was being offered. 

"Uh, Ari? What are those?" Camry asked in sign language. Her face was too frozen in an expression that was halfway between "disgusted" and "terrified" to talk. 

"Chapulines," Ari answered while pointing out the word on the sign hanging at the edge of the canopy. The blackboard was written on in multicolored chalk and featured a cartoonish drawing of a smiling grasshopper being showered with spices. "See? They've got little samples to try out. Which one do you want?" 

"You want me to try eating  _grasshoppers?_ " Camry gasped. The stall owner looked up and smiled at his two potential customers before asking them something in Spanish. Ari responded with a friendly wave of her hand and a shake of her head. He bolted up from his folding chair then and lifted the tray bearing the free samples to offer it more enthusiastically. Though her grasp of the language was rudimentary at best, Cam more or less understood when he indicated the different flavors his chapulines came in. 

"C'mon, just try one!" Ari said as she tried not to giggle too hard. "Look, I'll try it, too. Chili for you, garlic and lime for me." 

The roasted insects were in her hands, and she thanked the vendor with a nod before pressing the spicier one into her friend's palm. " _C'mooon_ , Cam! It's not gonna hurt you." 

"You're evil," Camry said before staring for a hard second at the spice-covered bug. Little flecks of the flavoring had fallen into the crevices of her hand print, but plenty was still firmly attached to the shriveled morsel. She had crushed plenty of grasshoppers for the divination spell before, but to actually put one in her mouth, chew, and swallow it down was an entirely different task in and of itself. 

The vendor chuckled at the two girls and seemed to say something encouraging. Ari beamed at him before side-eyeing Camry and popping her chapuline into her mouth. She chewed carefully, taking note of the texture and crunchiness. The flavor was interesting, if not entirely to her tastes. Camry watched her chew and swallow before steeling her nerves and tossing her own chapuline in. 

"So? What do you think?" the vendor asked. 

Ari parted her lips to respond, but Camry beat her to it with a loud and starry-eyed, "One more, please?" He grinned and offered the sample tray out so she could take another, though she tried a sweeter variation this time around. Fists on her hips and a surprised tilt to her head, Ari watched her eat the chapuline with far more gusto than she ever expected.

Well, that was one prank that didn't quite turn out the way she had hoped. 

"You really do like them?" she asked. 

"Mmhmm," Cam hummed before swallowing and freeing her mouth to speak properly. "The crunch is kinda weird, but the flavoring does a good job of not being too overpowering. I really like the chili ones!" 

At that, Ari laughed and pulled out a couple of bills from the pocket of her cut-off shorts to hand to the vendor. She asked for a small bag of the chili chapulines and passed it over, much to Camry's surprise. A quick exchange of thanks later, the vendor watched as the Mexican girl led her Caucasian companion away by the arm and back into the sea of foot traffic. 

"Wow, thanks, Ari!" The gratitude went unheard, so Camry made sure to sign it the next time she caught her friend's attention. 

A few moments later, they stopped again next to a bulletin board plastered with all types of information for guiding visitors through the city. A fair amount of missing children's posters was also pinned to the board. The topmost papers looked recent, but the ones that peeked out from behind them whenever a breeze picked up had been faded by the sunlight and stained by time. Ari put her hand flat against the side of the bulletin and fixed her tattered tennis shoe's laces while Camry looked on. 

The sight of Ari not having to wear her brace brought a smile to both girls' freckled faces. Because she sat for long periods of time in order to play the cup game with festival-goers, Ari's sprained ankle was finally showing some improvement. Maybe being forced to stay in one place for longer than a couple of days was just what the doctor ordered. 

Though Ari tried to stand back and say no, Camry playfully insisted that they take a picture of themselves together. Her camera phone was out and at the ready, poised to commemorate the festivities with a selfie. Grimy and more than a little on the unkempt side, both teens knew they weren't going to look good. "That's the point, though," Cam argued. "We gotta remember this trip exactly how it was." 

Ari used Camry's newly decided sign language name, which was the two-handed motion for "ghost" replaced with the letter "C," to help punctuate her exasperation as she got into position next to Camry. Cheek to cheek and grinning up at the camera, Ari and Camry each flashed a middle finger right before the button was pressed. They gasped and pointed at each other with clear delight on their faces-- how had they both had the same idea on the spot? Of course, Ari demanded that a copy be sent to her, and right after they edited their contact for each other to feature that very picture. 

~*~ 

Meanwhile, Joaquín found himself in the strange and undeniably awkward position of trying to not obviously notice how his siblings tip-toed around him. They had gotten a scare, even if it was mostly secondhand, by hearing about the spell he had almost performed. No one really knew how to bring the topic up to him, and it seemed that most didn't want to. Antonio was still too young to properly grasp the severity of the whole situation, so he remained the sole child who acted just as he always had. 

With that, Joaquín found himself drawn to his mother's side during longer and longer stints between his magical lessons. She knew better than anyone what it felt like to be separated from Ari for so long, and she was the only one who could have accurately guessed the true intention behind his attempted seance with the undead. Marina kept herself occupied with little projects around the complex, particularly those that involved her reorganizing the aesthetic makeup of a room or hall. She had always had a knack for feng shui, but long work hours and less than ideal materials had prevented her from exploring her talent very far. Now, thousand of miles from the constant threat of poverty for her and her tiny family, her own interests had found a way to take root in her daily schedule. 

Let's just say that Tía Elena hadn't been entirely too pleased at first with how her pantry had looked when she first opened it one morning within the second week of Marina's stay on the mountain. She did warm up to it eventually, though, and soon discovered how much easier it was to find the things she was looking for. Since then, Marina had found she was becoming more and more accepted within the tight-knit community of mothers, who in turn found it harder to dislike her as time passed. Understandably, the tías hadn't held the fondest of opinions of Marina after she had "stolen" two of Ricardo's children away from their odd family. 

"Taste," Tía Jazmín said curtly as she held out a spoonful of sauce toward Joaquín. Perched on a bar stool at the long island counter near the door to the kitchen, he had crept in during lunch preparations on the third day after getting caught by Laia and their father. 

Joaquín did as he was told and mulled over the flavor combinations for a second. "I like it! Maybe more salt, though?"

Jazmín, with a quirkiness that must have been genetic after seeing how AJ and Olivia turned out, accepted the critique after taking a taste of her own. "Mm, you're right. Good catch." 

"Thank you," he replied, smiling with just a hint of pride. 

Tía Camila, mother to Miguel, Terese, and Antonio, shot a glance at the teenager while she pulled a rack of freshly baked bread out of the oven next to where Jazmín stirred the pot. "Joaquín, no lessons today?" 

"No, I finished up kinda early," he explained while casually resting his chin on his hands. "I'm starting to think Dad is catching on to how fast I can read when I want to. He's been giving me more pages to read every day." 

"Remind me again what your magic is?" Jazmín asked as she pointed her spoon at him. Little flecks of her cooking sauce flew through the air with reckless abandon, though the splash zone didn't reach quite far enough to land on him. Joaquín reached out to his right side and scooped up a crumpled dish towel from the counter top to wipe up the spray. 

"Energy," he said. Jazmín hummed a single, high note at that but said nothing more on the subject. 

As he watched silently for a few moments, all kinds of thoughts began to bubble up from the back of his brain. Lulled by the meshing aromas of freshly baked bread and cooking food on the stove, he absentmindedly worked the edge of the towel between his fingers and let his mind wander. Time was running out before he had to come clean to his father about Ariadna, which meant he needed to come up with a plan to get his phone back and call Camry. If anyone knew when the best time to sneak into Ricardo's office was, then his tías had to be the right ones to ask. 

Well, here they were, and there's no time like the present.

Still kneading the rough, well-worn fabric in his hands, Joaquín let his dark eyes flick back and forth between Jazmín and Camila before zeroing in on Camila. Though he phrased it so either one would answer, he hoped she would be more forthcoming with the kind of info he needed to gather. "So, uh, I know that Dad is a therapist, but does he work from home most of the time? I hardly ever see him go down the mountain."  

"He's been taking some time off from his practice to be here for you," Camila piped up readily. With a pair of tongs in one hand, she eased the bread from its baking pans and onto cooling racks on a table on the other side of the kitchen. "And for Marina, too. No doubt he's keeping an eye on how you're adjusting to your new life with all of us."

Quirking an eyebrow at him, Jazmín leaned over across the tiled bar counter as if she meant to playfully interrogate him. "Is there something you're worried about? Got something to say?" 

"Not really," he answered quickly. "Just, uh-- I noticed that he spends a lot of time in his office, so I was wondering if that was just how things worked around here." 

"Give it another week or two and he'll probably head back in to work," Camila assured him cheerfully. She slid a long bread knife out of the rack sitting on another counter and set the knife down next to her cooling bread. She was quite the baker, it would seem, and often had something good-smelling in the works at any given moment. It was just a little too early to start slicing the fresh bread, but the sight of it just a few paces away was calling to Joaquín. "Elías will go back to his work soon, too." 

"You couldn't bribe either of them with  _anything_ to make them miss your birthday," Jazmín chimed in. The sauce pot was off the hot burner and still simmering in its residual heat. 

"What does Tío Elías do?" he asked. He didn't mind the brief segue; it helped his information gathering feel more natural.

"He pays visits to the other covens and clans around the world to help keep up good relationships with them," Camila said. "I don't know all the details, but I know it's helping since we haven't had any kind of conflict with anybody else in a long time." 

"Not until I came up the mountain, at least," Jazmín said with a snort, and Camila stifled laughter of her own behind one hand. The corners of Joaquín's lips curled up in a wan smile at that. From what he had observed, Jazmín was often the most willing to butt heads with Tía Elena, the mother of Caesar, Ramón, Thomas, and Trinidad. Elena, being the first to have children within the family and the only one to officially marry Ricardo, had a certain air of... superiority about her. Jazmín made no attempt to cut Elena down to size, but her defiance was an interesting opposition to the matronly hierarchy.

Before he could say anything else to try and reel the conversation back into his intended topic, a soft and warm presence rubbed against his ankle. His feet were planted on the footrest of his bar stool, so when he looked down he got a perfect shot of a short-haired tabby cat trying its best to reach high enough to brush against him. "Oh, hey, Tarot," Joaquín cooed while hopping down from the stool to scoop the cat up into his arms. She was AJ's familiar, if the name wasn't enough to give her away, and she pawed at his chin with her black toe beans while chirping at him.

"Oh, no, no, no," Jazmín said loudly while wagging an index finger at her daughter's familiar. Tarot flattened her ears back against her head in chagrin. "You know the rules, missy. No animals in the kitchen."

"I'll go take her back to AJ," Joaquín said, his right hand buried in the cat's soft fur while his other arm supported her rear. Camila told him not to go right away and sawed off a sliver of the warm bread she had just made. After popping it into his mouth, she sent him on his way and held back a laugh at how interested Tarot was in the bread hanging halfway out of his mouth. As he disappeared down the hallway, both women could hear a muffled, "No, you're not a people-- that's  _my_ bread." 

When he found her owner a few minutes later, Joaquín was sad to watch Tarot jump out of his arms. AJ knelt by her own private garden, which was a few square feet of nothing but plants that had magical properties when used correctly. The crook of her left arm carried a basket by its looped handle, and she was being meticulous in smelling the herbs before picking only the best ones. Tarot sidled right up to her and mewed to be scratched on the head. 

"Just letting her wander, or did you want her to come find me for a reason?" Joaquín asked from the other side of the raised herb bed. 

"Actually, it was kind of a mixture of both," AJ answered without looking up right away from what her hands were doing. "The girls and I were talking, and we decided to invite you to our slumber party tonight."

Up on the mountain, it was common knowledge that the sisters' slumber parties were exclusive, and no brothers had ever been allowed save for one time several years ago. No one really talked in detail about what had happened, but the infamous prank war that resulted had apparently left its mark on the complex. Without any prior knowledge, Joaquín was entirely clueless to the whole debacle. 

"Wow, are you sure about that? Legend tells that any boy who attends a slumber party is doomed to repeat history," he said in an overly theatrical voice. "Whatever that history might be."

"Yeah, yeah," she said with a roll of her honeycomb-patterned eyes. "But it's your birthday in a couple of days and we thought you would like it. Did you and Ariadna ever have slumber parties?" 

The way she asked it was hesitant, like she was afraid of touching a nerve. This was the first time since the seance incident that anyone had brought up his "dead" sister, and it was clear that AJ was apprehensive of treading on uncharted territory. Joaquín blew a breath out through his nose and smiled, though it was a touch more on the sad side than he meant. "Kind of. We always shared a room growing up, so sometimes we'd stay up and talk. I'd paint her nails sometimes, too." 

AJ rose to her feet and brushed off her knees to shed some of the dirt clinging to her warm brown skin. "Well, if you wanna paint nails and do fun stuff like that, the offer's open. Just don't tell the boys, okay?" 

"Wouldn't dream of it."

~*~

On the afternoon before the big 1-7, Ari and Camry sat back after counting out their earnings from the last few hours. All of this added onto the pile that had been growing from day one, plus a little bit carved out of their stash reserved for food... When Ari looked over at her companion, a wide grin was splitting both of their faces. "We made enough!" Ari cheered.

"Hot showers and clean clothes, here we come!" Camry crowed in response. 

Several days earlier, they had scouted out a motel with the best rates in the area and banked on the idea that most of the tourists would be starting to trickle out of the city once the festival began to wind down. Just as they predicted, there were finally vacancies when Ari stepped up to talk to the clerk at the front desk. He sighed and shot the two new tenants with a less-than-subtle look when they poured out their stockpile of small bills and coins on the counter. He mercifully kept his comments either to himself or too under his breath for Ari to decipher by reading his lips, and a few minutes of counting later, the keys to their room were in their hands. 

All either girl wanted to do was flop down on the soft queen-sized bed the second they looked into the sparse bedroom, but Ari knew better and grabbed Camry by the arm before she could do it. "Shower first," she said with a knowing smile. Camry's lips made a tiny "o" of understanding and she hung her head in mock shame, which got a soft giggle out of Ari. 

The feeling of the water buffeting her back was so glorious after so many days without being properly clean that Ari couldn't bring herself to mind how the water refused to turn much hotter than lukewarm. Camry's shower, however, was an entirely different matter thanks to her volcanic core. When she opened the bathroom door almost half an hour after going in, a huge cloud of steam followed her out and spilled onto the floor like a B-movie horror effect. The cooler water hitting her hot skin had quickly turned the bathroom into a sauna, and it showed in the bright red flush on her face. 

Ari was gone when she reemerged all scrubbed clean and squeaky with cheap motel soap products. Her clothes were gone as well, so Camry resigned herself to sitting in a towel until Ari returned. 'Must've found the washing machines' she presumed as she sank into the foot of the bed and fell back with her arms flung out to either side. So many nights spent on hard concrete or unforgiving dirt... A bed really was an amazing luxury. 

She almost dropped off to sleep right then and there, but the growling in her stomach was too loud to ignore. Sitting up, Camry let out a deep breath and concentrated on restraining the burst of heat she emitted in a sudden rush. Now completely dry, she shifted into Relle Phantom just to be wearing something substantial and rummaged through her bag in search of something to eat. She came up with half of a crumbling granola bar and a piece of tamarind candy that someone on a parade float had tossed her way. Grimacing, she ate both in record time and fell back onto the bed to wait for Ari.

There was a knock at the door, and Camry peered through the eye hole before opening it invisibly. She didn't want anyone to see her as either the wanted criminal Relle Phantom or the towel-clad Camry Dowell, after all. Ari hurried in with a toasty-warm, fresh-out-of-the-dryer load of clothing in her arms and dropped it onto the bed before burrowing into its soft folds. " _Ohhh myyy goood_..." she moaned. Her eyes flickered when she felt the bed dip down to indicate that Camry, now Camry instead of Relle, had done the same. Though she didn't hear it, Ari could feel the vibration of her friend's own loud groan of delight through the pile of fabric. 

They got dressed before the dryer heat could fade away and carefully folded up everything else to be stowed away in their backpacks. There were no words to describe the relief and pleasure both girls felt now that their bodies were scrubbed of grime and their clothes weren't stiff with dust. Everything smelled so much better, even if the motel didn't feel the need to splurge on name-brand laundry detergent. Lying on the bed width-wise with each girl pointed in the opposite direction, Ari and Cam took all the time they wanted to bask in the feeling of being clean. 

Tomorrow was Ariadna's birthday, which meant it was also Dude's birthday. Camry opened her eyes to stare at the rough pattern on the clay-colored ceiling. That was when a realization hit her: she had never actually been around for their birthday before. She and Dude had met in the winter of their freshman year, and she had died during the early part of summer before sophomore year. Sophomore year was long over and they were all staring down the barrel of an impending junior year in a little less than a month. 

This was going to be the first birthday she'd be able to celebrate with either twin. A firm resolve forced her fists to clench in determination where they rested on her stomach. It would be a miracle if they managed to find him tomorrow, but it wasn't something either girl would hold their breath for. 'I don't want to miss another one of his birthdays...' she thought before turning her head to look over at Ari. Her white opal eyes were also open, though they were fixed on the ceiling. Though it was a little hard to tell, Ari seemed to have a serious, thoughtful expression on her face. 

Camry fought to sit up and leaned over Ari's head, planting each hand on either side of the older girl's face. "What are you thinking about?" she asked.

"Huh?" Ari answered. Reading lips was one thing, but reading them upside-down? Forget it. Camry realized this and repeated her question in sign language. "Oh. Nothing much. Just wondering what tomorrow will be like."

Still lying on her back, she watched Camry sign another question. "I'm... a little sad, I guess. First birthday without my brother. Was bound to be weird, if we're being honest."

"I'll give you a good birthday," Camry promised with her hands and more confidence in her signing than ever. There was something to be said about getting so much practice with the language out of necessity. 

"Thanks, Cam," Ari said, smiling with her eyes closed before she relaxed back into the comforter and folded her hands behind her head. "Hey, would you go down the hall and steal some snacks out of the vending machine?" 

A mischievous smirk on her face, Camry got off the bed to go do just that. Something that minor wasn't quite so nerve-wracking to do, and it gave her a chance to practice her intangibility. Their pre-birthday dinner was a feast of candy bars, bottled sodas, and snack packages of over-priced jerky. With full bellies and the appealing promise of sleeping in the following morning, they let drowsiness take them only a couple of hours later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOU GUYS. THE BIG DAY IS NEARLY UPON US. THE NEXT CHAPTER WILL BE SO GOOD, YOU HAVE NO IDEA!!
> 
> And now that caps lock is turned off, I shall bid you all a fond farewell until the next chapter. Thanks for reading!


	27. City of Gold

Morning arrived in a gentle beam of sunlight streaming through a crack between the drawn curtains. Slowly waking in very gradual increments, Ariadna blinked up at the roof over her head and smiled serenely at the sight. The covers were warm, if a little on the scratchy side, and she snuggled deeper into the fabric. She hadn't woken so peacefully from such a deep sleep in a long time, even before the expedition began. Her exhaustion really had put her through its paces, but there was no better way to wake up on a bright and sunny birthday morning. 

"Mmm~" she hummed low in her throat. Lying on top of the covers beside her, Camry stirred but didn't awaken. She lay on her front while facing Ari. Her right arm was pinned beneath her body, and a little puddle of drool darkened her white pillowcase. Ari blew a short breath out her nose in laughter at the sight and sat up to stretch her hands high above her head. Her spine and shoulders popped audibly, yet Camry barely registered the sounds.

Did Ari need to take a shower after taking one only the evening before? Absolutely not. Did she do it anyway because it was her birthday and she wasn't about to listen to anyone who tried to tell her "no?"  _Hell yeah_.

The sounds of the shower water striking the tub were what roused Camry from her own slumber. Despite how she had to pop her neck to relieve a crick gained from sleeping in a somewhat strange position for most of the night, she was in an equally relaxed mood as Ari. With her planned outfit for the day on the wrinkled bed sheets beside her, she patiently waited for her turn in the shower. The bathroom door opened to reveal an already-dressed Ari scrunching her damp hair with a hand towel and smiling. 

Camry rose to her feet and waved to her friend before signing "Happy birthday!" in the biggest gestures she could manage. Then she threw her arms around the taller girl's shoulders and hugged her firmly for a good five seconds before pulling away. 

"Thanks, Cam," Ari laughed while hugging back. "This is going to be the weirdest birthday ever, but I'm looking forward to it." 

"I should hope you are," Camry said, a mischievous smile on her freckled face. "There's a whole fucking festival outside right now, and we're gonna see all of it."

Once properly showered and dressed, Camry led Ari down to the dining area to partake in the complementary breakfast buffet. They all but gorged themselves on everything their overexerted bodies desired and made sure to sneak out whatever they could find that would keep well for at least a day. Hiking under the hot sun for a month straight had taken its toll on their physiques, lending them each a much more toned but underfed version of how they used to look. Their bodies were craving the kind of nourishment they were used to, so it was little wonder when they had to force themselves to stop before they would throw up. 

"Ready to get out there, birthday girl?" Camry asked. Their room was booked for two nights, and each teen had a key stashed in her pocket. Most of their belongings would be staying back in the room for safekeeping, so for the first time in over a month they were about to spend a day unburdened by the means of their very survival. 

"Let's get partying!" Ari cheered.

~*~

For Joaquín, his birthday began much earlier. Just when the sky was beginning to color itself with all the hues of a summer sunrise, he rose and threw on his clothes for the day while trying to make as little noise as possible. He had a mission to accomplish before anyone else woke up, particularly his father, and now was the only time to do it. Every attempt to get his phone back from Ricardo's office had failed, and try as he did to remain covert about each foiled break-in, he worried that his motives were too transparent to hide. 

If he managed to get in and out without leaving a trace or being seen, he should have his phone with all of his contacts back in his hands at long last. 

As he pulled his shirt over his head, Joaquín wondered what would happen if he failed this time as well. Not being able to call Camry and figure out how to meet her and Ari again left only the option of coming clean to his father. Ricardo would undoubtedly be able to find Ari through magic, and upon retrieving her, their family would truly be complete. Admitting to lying about her death would undoubtedly have terrible consequences, and those were the last things he wanted to think about on his birthday of all days. 

As he threaded a belt through the loops on his shorts, Joaquín wondered what his siblings would think of him when they found out he had lied to them all about Ari, too. Even without meeting her once in their entire lives, they all had felt real loss when they found out she was "dead." He could have told the truth at any point within the last month, and yet he had kept his mouth shut. 'God, they're going to  _hate_ me...' 

And as he finished tying the laces of his sneakers, Joaquín wondered if Ari was going to have a good birthday without him. He wanted her to, of course, but the thought couldn't help crossing his mind. She would find it weird to be celebrating it on her own, too, right? 

Well, in any case, he was going to blow his own cover by the end of the night one way or another. 'Better write out my last will and testament' he thought, his hand rubbing his tense forehead as he stood in the middle of his room. 'It'll be worth it to have Ari back, though.'

A quick glance around the room showed him all of the little personal touches he had accumulated over the last month. A stack of books on the desk; a little aloe plant with a white bow tied around its terra cotta pot on the windowsill; a laundry basket surrounded by a few scattered articles of dirty clothing that somehow didn't quite make it inside; and other little mementos of his stay all formed a picture of a room that was lived in by a real person. Joaquín, upon really looking at his surroundings, wondered when this space had become  _his_. 

Lucas had given him a few hand-drawn sigils to put up around his room, so those slightly wrinkled pieces of paper were taped to the walls so their magic could take effect. Considering how his sleepless nights had grown fewer and farther between since then, they seemed to be working. The rising sun caught his eye, but when his gaze turned toward the window with its parted curtains, he found himself focusing on the framed picture of his tiny family left in the shadow beneath the sill. The glass offered him a translucent glimpse at his reflection, where he could make out the ends of his shortened hair trying and failing to tickle the top of his right ear. Laia and Lucas had offered to trim it when he mentioned how the weight was starting to overheat the side of his face, and despite how the polar opposites bickered over the best way to cut it away, Joaquín couldn't help feeling a bit lighter afterwards. The back and sides had been shaved down as well to complete his new look.

Before he could mull over anything else, the sound of his doorknob turning startled him into spinning around. Still dressed in their pajamas and with mischief etched into their features, every one of his siblings except Antonio peered in to see about getting the jump on the birthday boy. Disappoint quickly replaced that when they saw he was already awake and out of bed. 

"Aw, what?" Ramón whined as he let go of the door handle. "You're up? Who doesn't sleep in on their birthday?"

"Apparently no one on the mountain does, if this is something of a tradition for you guys," Joaquín retorted with a wry smile. 

"Eh," Ramón said, shrugging. "Get him!"

His morning started off very early, for sure, but it also started off with a dozen hugs and noogies from his brothers and sisters, too. There was no chance he was sneaking into his father's office at that point, either. Even so, that plan was cast aside in the rush of the moment, and Joaquín found it difficult to care as much as he knew he should. 

There were no lessons planned for the day, so the morning was filled with video games and a hearty breakfast before all eleven teens and preteens were gathered around Ricardo to be briefed for the upcoming trip into Durango's capital city. Eagerly the children waited for whatever their father was going to say, and it did not disappoint. 

"Alright, we are all going to go down to the festival today," he began, his tone an interesting midway point between stern and excited. "Everyone gets an allowance to spend, but I don't want to hear anyone asking for more when it's gone. And, since it's a special occasion, I have a surprise for everyone, too." 

Ricardo opened his hands with the sides pressed against one another, and out of thin air a cardboard box appeared. It had no lid, so all he had to do was reach in and pull out the first object. "Joaquín, this one's for you." 

Sleek and shiny in the way only brand new phones can be, the white cell phone made its way into Joaquín's stunned hands. It already had a case as well: the pattern resembled the top of a skateboard, and a faint gold detail of the Narváez coven's crest vanished and reappeared in the top right corner depending on how he held the phone. One by one, everyone got a new cell phone and started to chatter with one another in excitement. Ricardo had to call out for the mob's attention as he handed over the last of the phones. 

"Alright, everyone, listen to me. Your mothers and I talked about this for a long time, so we're putting our trust in you all. I don't want to see you on these things all the time, alright? These phones are for keeping in touch and taking pictures while you explore the festival." With that out of the way, he leaned back and let out a breath. "It'll be a few more days until we're done, but Elí and I are working on making the barrier around the mountain permeable to cell tower signals."

"So we get to keep these, then?" Olivia gasped as she clutched her phone to her chest. 

"Yes, you do," Ricardo answered. "But don't think I'll be buying you any more than this one. If you lose it or break it, you're going to have to figure out how to get a replacement on your own peso. That's also why the cases are enchanted with the family crest as extra protection." 

A few more unimportant loose ends were tied up before their journey down the mountain began. It took two trips for the cable car to bring everyone across the ravine, and the kids split into those same two groups to take the waiting cars into town. Ricardo drove the first car while Camila volunteered to drive the second. They were looking at about an hour's drive, but that hour vanished in the blink of an eye with all the excited talking and car games. Apparently, though they occasionally flew to other countries with their father when an important gathering or event happened, the Narváez children weren't all that well-traveled. Being home-schooled on the mountain really was a special world of its own, after all. 

When he glanced at Camila driving while her passengers chattered on about what they wanted to see and do at the festival, Joaquín thought back to how he had asked his own mother why she didn't want to come down with them. At first, she cited there not being the need for another chaperone, but upon pressing further he was told that she had a surprise she was working on. Having the free time away from everyone was exactly what she needed to finish it, apparently, and she hoped to be done before the family returned. Joaquín let her alone after that, though he couldn't deny that his curiosity was piqued about this 'surprise.' 

His phone was in his hands, and as he scrolled through the pre-installed features he noticed that his contacts list had all of his siblings and parents saved to it. Well, all but one. He groaned internally at how much of a tease this present was after everything he had tried to get his old phone with all its contacts back. 

Still, he let the tension in his muscles out with a sigh and allowed himself to get wrapped in his siblings' excitement. If nothing else, it would help the car ride pass a little faster. 

~*~

When Saoirse woke up that very morning, she picked up her cell from its charging station on her bedside table before anything else. Being such a media mogul had drawn her into the habit of checking her platforms for updates, but the notifications from her apps barely registered in her brain when she saw what her calendar had to say about August 7th, 2016. 

"Oh, man..." she breathed with the side of her face pressed into her pillow. 

Of course: it was his birthday. And Dude wasn't around to celebrate it with his best friends. 

Saoirse sighed and rose into sitting, her bones creaking with the effort of moving after being still for so long. An elbow on her knee and her cheek in her palm, she stared at the cardboard box that proudly displayed the logo for Anama, the biggest online shopping center in the world. The box sat on top of a pile of clothes she had yet to fold, thereby marking how long it had been since it arrived. She ordered the gift in the hopes that she would have word of her best friend's whereabouts by the time his birthday rolled around, but she was still as in the dark as she had been a month ago. Even after being updated on Camry and Ari's trip as recently as the night before, Saoirse knew her hopes weren't going to be met. 

'And I really wanted to use this birthday to make up for the last one, too...' she thought, a forlorn expression on her face. She had apologized for the things she said out of anger and loss almost as soon as the words left her mouth, but that wouldn't make up for the way she still treated him on his  _birthday_ of all days.

Camry's disappearance and assumed death had been very recent by grief's standards, and the pain hadn't dimmed with time. All Saoirse had wanted to do was let despair take her away, but Dude refused to let her feel alone in the wake of such a disaster. She snapped at his invitation to go do something fun and accused him of trying to act like nothing had happened to their group. He forgave her, of course-- Dude was so kind like that, and he knew that wasn't really Saoirse talking to him. Even so, the day carried a strange, sour air with it.

Saoirse regretted it for months after, and even a full year later she couldn't help how she flinched at the memory.

'C'mon, Cam and Ari' Saoirse thought without breaking her stare at the boxed gift sitting, waiting, across the room. 'Find him already. This suspense is killing me.'

~*~

With cotton candy in Camry's hand and a cup of lemonade in Ari's, the two girls sat side by side on a bench and watched the crowds milling about in front of them. Music drifted over from somewhere down the street, and brightly colored banners fluttered in their higher altitude's breeze. Ari delighted in looking up at the incredibly blue sky and the thin white clouds that stuttered along, visible between the rooftops of the bustling city. Camry tapped her toe to the beat of the distant Latin pop songs playing from some sort of venue; by their sound quality, it might even be a live performance.

She gently tapped on Ari's arm to get her attention and signed that she was going to wash her hands after finishing her cotton candy. Ari nodded and indicated out the fixed sign that pointed to the nearest restrooms. With that, Camry got up and disappeared around a corner as if spirited away, leaving Ari alone on the bench for just a minute. 

That minute turned into three, and then five. Meanwhile, Ari started to worry and wondered if she ought to get up and go look for Camry herself. If something had happened, she wasn't exactly able to hear it, and the bathrooms weren't in her direct line of-- 

Suddenly a blonde head skipped into view. Camry beamed at her and signed a quick, "Sorry" before explaining that the lines to get into the restroom had been stupidly long. "Everything okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, yeah," Ariadna replied with a nonchalant shrug of one shoulder. "I'm a little worried about, uh... about how much we're spending on today. Haven't we already dug into our food budget too much?" 

"Oh, that," Camry said, and her smile dropped from her face. "Look, I-- I only figured they wouldn't miss a little bit. Here, can you, I dunno, listen to the present for just a sec? So I can whisper it in your ear?" 

Seated once more on the bench, she leaned over and used a hand to shield her lips from view. Ari closed her eyes, and her forehead creased with the effort of concentrating to keep her hearing from expanding too far out. 

"Look, you're probably going to hate me for this, but I overheard a group of these obviously rich tourists talking shit about the festival events while we were eating breakfast this morning. Remember when I went back to the room to grab a hair tie?" Camry whispered as loud as she dared.

"Oh my god, you didn't," Ari murmured, but to Camry's surprise her tone was so much more delighted than she'd expected.

"I'm not  _proud_ of it, okay, but I actually went invisible when I was around a corner and snuck back in to see the numbers on their room keys. Then I ran up there and phased through the doors. Wallets were right out in the open. I only took a little from each one, though, so they probably haven't even missed it." 

She pulled away then and sighed, bracing herself for whatever response Ari would have. Ari grinned, and the obvious tells of her concentration vanished from her face. "Those jerks three tables over who definitely were gossiping about us when they thought we weren't paying attention?" she asked, and Camry nodded. "Yeah, they saw you signing to me. After you left I tried listening to the room so I wouldn't get surprised by anything, and they were  _definitely_ making fun of us. I'm glad you did that, honestly."

"Huh," Camry said after a moment of confused silence. "Well, uh... cool. Cool? Cool."

"If it means we get to enjoy ourselves more than we expected for the day, then I am all for it," Ari continued as she leaned back on the bench and smiled up at the sunlight streaming down on her freckled face. "Ableist pricks deserve to get robbed, even if it was only a little bit."

"I'm surprised you didn't hex them a little bit," Cam giggled when Ari looked over at her again. 

"Ehh, I thought about it. Don't really know any good hexes, though," was her comically blasé response. She surged to her feet and motioned for her friend to follow her. "But now that I know we're a little better off than before, I think I wanna go pick out my present. To the shops!" 

The next few hours flew by so quickly as they investigated shop after shop down the many roads of the city. Downtown was packed for another parade, and at one point a dog jumped into the procession and just lapped up all the cheers and applause from the onlookers. The temporary stands were where the real prizes were, though. With the celebrations winding to a close by tomorrow, prices were getting marked down in huge quantities to help get rid of what had yet to sell. Ari eagerly browsed the jewelry makers, clothing stalls, and everything in between with Camry at her side. Many more selfies were taken as they tried on new pairs of sunglasses, donned hats they would never wear, and snacked on fair food when their stomachs began to complain. At one point that afternoon, Cam insisted that Ari delete the photo she'd taken of Camry mid-chew on something very sugary and fried, but Ari refused and threatened to send it back to Saoirse just for laughs. 

In her back pocket, the paper photo of herself and Dude poked her with its weathered edges every so often like a gentle reminder of why they were there in the first place. About midway through the afternoon, while Ari rifled through traditional Mexican dresses hanging on a circular rack under a stall's canopy, Camry turned away from the clothes and quietly asked the owner if she had seen the boy in the picture. The answer was negative, just as she feared, and she stowed the photo away again. As much as she knew Ari was worried about her brother and was anxious about spending a birthday without him, the day had so far passed without a hitch, and Camry didn't want to sully that by throwing her fears back in her friend's face.  

Even so, the guilt of wasting such a busy day going about the city was too much of a burden to go unnoticed, so Camry did her best to remain covert about asking the random people they came across as they walked up and down the strips where vendors sold their wares. At one point, when Ari found herself in the midst of a difficult choice between two hats that she really liked, Camry felt an odd urge to look away and immediately spotted a kid that looked about her age at the next stall over. He had shaggy dark brown hair and wore a pair of nice but well-loved running shoes. He was pondering over the handmade leather-bound notebooks when she approached him and waved ever so meekly to get his attention. 

"Hi!" she said in Spanish with her best pronunciation. "Sorry to bother, but I have a quick question." 

He took in the sight of her with a rapid glance down and back up. 'He definitely thinks I'm a tourist' she surmised by how his expression became very exasperated. Camry held up the photograph and pointed to the smiling boy with his arm around her. "Have you seen this boy?" 

The teenager frowned and stared very intently at the picture for a few seconds. She watched his expression the entire time, taking note of how his dark eyes had little pricks of green and blue colors in the irises. Something about him seemed oddly familiar, for some strange reason, but she just couldn't put her finger on it before he looked back up at her again. 

"No, sorry," he replied with a shake of his head. Then the boy looked over her shoulder and gasped. What he said while pointing was too fast for Camry to process and interpret, but she whipped her head around to look back anyway. It was at that moment that she felt him snatch the picture out from between her fingertips. When she spun to look in front of herself again, he was halfway to disappearing down the street. 

The gears in her head smoked with the effort of processing what exactly had just happened. Even as the vendor yelled after the boy, the world around her narrowed to a single illuminated line connecting her and the thieving kid as he ran. 

My picture! How'm I gonna ask people--? 

It's okay, I have two more in my backpack--

What the hell just  _happened_ \--?

Wow, he can run really fast-- 

His eyes were shifting colors, weren't they? Or was I just imagining--

That picture isn't worth the paper it's printed on anymore, so why would he want to take it from me? 

That was the million dollar question, and its billion dollar answer struck Camry like a bolt of lightning from the heavens above:

_He knows where Dude is_.

 

She didn't hesitate for even a second longer to take off after him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *screams eternally* 
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Also... there are very few details, I know, but can you guess who this is?


	28. Adrenaline Rush

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're interested, here's a link to some great chase scene music you might like to listen to while reading this chapter:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHUUoFjkVcI  
> Have fun!

He knows.  _He knows_. 

That was all that ran through Camry's mind as she bolted after the thief. He dodged around pedestrians with the same agility and unpredictability as a rabbit, barely missing the innocent bystanders by an inch or less. Camry, on the other hand, had to skid to a stop and weave another path for herself through the crush of foot traffic. She was all too lucky to have so much leg muscle and experience with fancy footwork-- this kid was doing his damn best to give her the slip!

When she caught another glimpse of him from behind, she made sure to take note of what exactly he was wearing: orange T-shirt, black basketball shorts with white stripes down the sides, and sneakers that had been white and green at one point in his lifetime. 'Not exactly an outfit for stealth' she couldn't help thinking wryly. 'Perfect.' 

" _Hey!_ " she yelled when a break in the traffic appeared and gave her the chance to close some of the distance between her and the boy. "Get back here, asshole!" 

He spared a look back over his shoulder and glared at her but didn't reply. The street ahead veered left into a cobbled route and wound through a lush park with full, leafy trees to stroll under. Couples and families with small children had gathered to do exactly that. The wheels of their toddlers' strollers bounced and stuttered over the ground for the sake of the aesthetic. Measuring carefully with his eyes, he waited until the very last second to make a ninety degree turn left and start treating the romantic couples like gates on a slalom course. 

Cam let out a very unladylike growl and struggled against her own inertia to stay close to him. Damn, he could run as fast as she could! Considering how she was a superhero who mainly got around via her own two legs, that was saying something. Her long history with dance was just the cherry on top of her skill set. 

The thief turned right onto the grass and found himself with a new obstacle: the picnicking blankets scattered around the park. He looked back again-- she was still following him! 'Fine' he thought while deliberately picking up speed. 'She can run, but can she jump?'

Across the park, a clear line of indignant people could be tracked from start to finish as he started jumping clear over the blankets, food, and heads that got in his way. He had no reason to worry that he wouldn't clear everything every time; after all, a witch's familiar mirrors their own natural attributes and personality, and his was a rabbit of all things. If anyone could make a tough jump, it was Miguel. 

Unfortunately for him, Camry was also not so easily deterred. She kept on him and didn't plan on letting him out of her sight again. Her core, hidden deep within and wrapped up by the extradimensional layer of her human self, was growing warmer and warmer with the excitement of the chase. She called out a warning before every jump and tried to throw as many apologies behind her as she could, but nevertheless she matched the thief bound for bound.

Well, she almost did. A few leaps nearly ended with her coming up short and possibly slipping on the edge of the blanket or dish just past her heel. Camry knew that slipping here could end with her losing the one solid lead in over a month spent trying to find her best friend, and she wasn't about to let that happen-- not on her life or her afterlife. 

Camry gasped at what she knew was about to happen. The blanket's edge was going to catch on her heel and she would lose her balance. Oh, shit, oh-- wait. Almost as if it happened in slow motion, a rational thought broke through the frantic static of her one-track mind and shouted at her: "TELEPORT, YOU DITZ!" She blurred forward those two inches she needed to clear the blanket and touched down on solid ground and grass, where she found the purchase she needed to keep going. 

There he was, jumping over the low wall that separated the park from the pavement! He ran alongside a crosswalk when Camry vaulted over that same wall and kept going, but that was when luck seemed to favor him on this eventful, sunny day. Streets on floating acres are notoriously narrow and usually only have one lane going in each direction, but the bike paths on all sides are much wider and more accommodating for hordes of cyclists. The same was true in Victoria de Durango's floating acre, and Miguel just so happened to get across the street a split second before the lights changed and traffic began to run perpendicular to how he and his pursuer were going. 

When he realized this, Miguel took a moment to pause and look back while catching some of his breath. She was hopping up and down at the edge of the sidewalk and sending him murderous stares between the zooming heads of the cyclists that had cut her off. He didn't bother stifling his breathless laugh before taking off again, where the shadows cast by the tall buildings helped in swallowing him from view. 

"Fuck!" Camry screamed. There was no chance she could go ghost in such an open and visible area, and she didn't have time to look for somewhere more private. If she wanted to get to the other side, she would have to either wait patiently for the lights to change again or try and leapfrog her way to the other side. 

Never let it be said that Camry is a lady of patience. Several onlookers shrieked when she dove through a break in the waves of bicyclists and started dancing her way across. Handlebar bells struck up a chorus that rose high into the air, but she was too far gone in her adrenaline rush to even consider the danger. This month-long search was ending today one way or another! 

It was nothing short of a miracle that she made it across unscathed. A couple of cyclists might have gotten rear-ended when they stopped unexpectedly in the middle of the rush, but that was the least of her worries. 

~*~

The day had been going fine up until that  _weirdo_ showed up! 

Everyone who wasn't a preteen or younger had been granted the privilege of roaming the festival unsupervised as long as they weren't completely alone. Caesar and Ramón had stuck with the larger cluster for all of an hour before splitting off to go do their own thing, then rejoined for a little while when they managed to find their younger siblings again at the same food truck. Then they went off again, possibly to go pick out a gift for Joaquín or just enjoy the fair at their own pace.

Miguel had had the same idea around an hour before the agreed time when everyone would meet up to go home again. After grabbing his twin, he and Terese splintered away to start shopping for souvenirs and presents together. Besides, it made more sense to save that kind of thing for the end of a trip. Even so, right when it seemed like Miguel had found the perfect present for his older half-brother, that foreign chick had popped into existence and flashed a picture of her and the birthday boy himself. 

Miguel's first impressions hadn't been too, well, impressed. Dressed in a white jock tank top whose front and back halves were only connected at the shoulders and hem, she didn't seem to care that her bright blue sports bra was almost entirely visible. Even when she moved in a feminine way, her energy came off as noticeably masculine in a number of ways. God, and her accent when she spoke Spanish? It had taken everything within Miguel not to roll his pinfire opal eyes. Never mind that he could undoubtedly speak whatever her native language was.

Still, the second she held up that photograph and asked if he had seen the boy in the image? Suddenly every alarm bell in Miguel's brain was clanging. In hindsight, he should have called for Terese and talked to her about what to do-- it was all too likely the blonde wouldn't understand their conversation if they spoke something like French or Russian. Instead, like the impulsive idiot he was, Miguel had distracted her and snatched the photo to take to someone older. If he found his dad, or maybe Ramón and Caesar, they would be able to help him deal with the intruder.

Miguel was so sure he had bought himself some time after making it across the street that he slowed his pace to a more natural run. His family had to be  _somewhere_ nearby, right? There were still roughly twenty minutes until he would be late to the rendezvous spot, so he couldn't go there right away. What if he went there, waited just long enough for the foreigner to catch up, and then managed to lead her right to the rest of the coven? Sure, they would definitely be able to do something about her, but that ran the risk of leading her right to Joaquín. She was obviously dead set on finding him, especially judging by how she pursued Miguel right up until the cyclists stopped her in her tracks. 

A hill was coming up, and Miguel pumped his legs like mad to climb it without losing all of his momentum. It crested in a T-split going left or right, and he chose the right path. Just as he was rounding the corner, though, he spared a glance behind him and was nearly floored at the sight of the blonde girl almost halfway up the hill. Her face was flushed under her tan and her eyes glinted with an inner fire that he swore he could still see from so far away. 

" _¡Mierda_ \--!" he sputtered as he lurched back into high gear. How the  _hell_ did she catch up to him so quickly? With one hand on her head to hold her straw-colored sun hat in place and the other pumping madly at her side, she looked on the verge of literally steaming like an angry cartoon character. Just like that, the chase was back to its initial intensity, and it left a path of disgruntled bystanders in its wake. 

Hiding didn't work, blending in within a crowd didn't work, and even using magic to covertly make huge leaps in distance didn't seem to work at all! Miguel was at a complete loss for what to do when he looked back for what felt like the hundredth time and saw her furious face locked onto him from less than seventy yards away. Little did he know that whenever she lost track of him as he used his special advantages, Camry had used some of her own to invisibly jump up on her tiles and scan over the heads of everyone filling the streets and plazas. His bright orange shirt was the real MVP of her mission, and she almost felt the urge to thank it personally if she ever caught up at the end of the chase. 

Before he knew it, Miguel was only a few blocks away from the lift station where the Narváez children were supposed to meet up. How long had he been running? Good god, his lungs were on fire, and he knew what fire felt like from personal experience. Miguel knew that he was running out of time, but that would also mean his siblings were as well. If they were waiting at the lift station already, then he would have reinforcements. 'Just gotta make sure I lose her before I get there. Then we'll have enough time to hide Joaquín before she finds me again.'

"Jesus Christ, slow  _down!_ " Miguel heard her screech, and the sound almost stopped his heart's frantic beating with its closeness. 

'Shit, I gotta lose her now!'

He faltered in his steps and abruptly changed directions on a dime to duck behind a huge bulletin board trapped in a case of fiberglass. It was a directory to help tourists find the biggest and most popular landmarks, so there were plenty of people milling around it to help hide his legs peeking out beneath the board. He stopped breathing altogether and listened for the thundering sounds of footsteps blazing a trail past.

There she was-- and there she went. The footsteps faded into a screeching halt and paused before disappearing altogether. That was when Miguel allowed himself to suck in a desperate breath and brace his hands on his knees. Dear lord, he didn't get winded like this even after playing in full-blown football tournaments! The fact that this girl, whoever she was, was able to keep up the chase with such vigor really spoke to something about her character. 

He waited a solid fifteen seconds before peering out around the edge of the billboard. She was at the other edge of the plaza and standing on her toes to try and see what she could. Okay, so she didn't know where he was yet. That's progress. Miguel spun back behind the directory and cast a silent glamour on himself to help him blend in with his surroundings better. To the regular human eye, any potential onlooker would inexplicably find themselves looking the other way without a second thought as to why. 

At least, that was how it was  _supposed_ to work. 

Miguel watched her the entire time as he crept around the perimeter of the plaza. That's how he saw the exact moment when she seemed to perk up and immediately whipped around to stare right at him. He cursed under his breath again and dropped the glamour to run as fast as he could down the street he had been edging closer to. The station was visible at the end of the street, where the fence bordering the entire acre rose up to protect even the most inebriated or foolhardy from falling to their death. 

He didn't have time to try and hide again. One look at the clock tower that rose over the station's gabled roof told him that much. It was almost four o' clock, which meant his siblings had to be  _somewhere_ nearby. 

"C'mon, c'mon!" he groaned as his eyes darted over the heads and faces of everyone before him. Wait, there,  _there_ \--! Caesar and Ramón were standing near the border fence and waiting with bored expressions on their faces. Miguel veered to the right and took off like a shot toward them. 

"Caesar! Ramón!" he yelled when he was within range. Neither of them had hearing conduits, so he had to get close. Ramón obviously didn't hear him since he didn't look up from his phone, but Caesar did. Miguel was coming in too hot to slow down, and when that fact became clear Caesar did what he could by grabbing his twin's shirt and hauling him out of their younger brother's path. Panting for air and sweating bullets, Miguel skidded to a stop and grabbed Caesar's arm insistently. "Emergency! Guys, we-- have an emergency!"

"What is it? What?" Ramón asked him quickly, but he was cut off by a piece of paper getting shoved far too close to his face for him to see it properly. 

"She's-- looking for him! We-- We gotta--!" 

Ramón leaned back and squinted at the picture as he said, "Who's looking for--  _Joaquín?_ "

" _She_ is!" Miguel yelled. "She's after me! We gotta hide--!"

But it was too late for that, because Camry was closing in and there was nothing they could do about it. Over the hubbub of the crowds, rapid footsteps grew louder in the direction that Miguel had appeared from, bringing a stocky blonde girl into view barely a second later. Her farsighted vision zeroed in on the cluster of boys standing in the distance. Teeth grit in both determination and rage, the foreigner zoomed over the last few yards between her and Miguel and seized him by the back of his shirt before he could try to get away from her again. The two twins saw her coming at the last moment and tried to pull him back toward themselves, but she planted her feet and maintained her iron grip. 

"Who the hell are you?" Caesar demanded in Spanish at the same time Ramón yelled, also in Spanish, "Let go of our brother, you crazy bitch!"

"Don't--!" she yelled, breathless and red-faced. She took a second to suck in a breath, and in that second Caesar and Ramón yanked Miguel forward to stick him behind a wall made of their own taller bodies. "Don't you dare--! I know--!"

Camry drew in another wheezing breath to continue, "-- I  _know_ what you are. I  _know_ you can understand me. Don't fuck with me!" To make herself even clearer, she aimed her index finger at his face and kept it that way. 

With both hands held out in a placating gesture, Ramón swallowed thickly and took in the sight of the American girl in front of him. She had a sunburn tan and sunglasses hanging from the front of her white jock tank top. A dark blue sports bra was clearly visible underneath her shirt. Her sun hat, by no small miracle, was still perched atop her head, but the shade it offered did nothing to hide the furious expression on her face.

What exactly did she mean by knowing what they "are?" That couldn't possibly mean...?

"... Alright," Ramón said, switching to English and maintaining a calm, even tone. "Alright. Who are you, and what do you want?"

"I— I want—" Camry panted without moving her shaking finger from inches in front of his nose. "I want— you to tell me— tell me where he is! I  _know_  you know! _"_

"We don't know who you're talking about," Caesar tried to say, but all it earned him was her finger swiveling to take a stab in his direction. She stalked forward until she was all but right in his face; he took an appalled step back in response. 'This bitch is fucking nuts!'

"I said don't fuck with me!" Camry shot back _,_ her voice growing more shrill. Heads were starting to turn their way, bringing judgmental eyes down on the hostile exchange. "Don't you dare try to lie to me! He's here and you know where he is! Now give me back my picture!"

"Oh, what?  _This_  picture?" Migueltaunted, holding up the crushed slip of paper from behind his brotherly shield. 

~*~

"Thanks again for the presents, you guys!" Joaquín crooned as he swung a paper bag back and forth by its handles. "Honestly, best birthday ever."

His entourage of siblings consisted of AJ, Lucas, Laia, and Olivia. As per their dad's instructions, they had agreed to meet up at the cable car station at four o' clock, which was exactly where they were headed now. After spending hours with his brothers and sisters going through the vendor stands, checking out the different rides, and gorging themselves on fair food, the day was tapering down into a pleasant wrap-up that would conclude with dinner and cake up on the mountain.

However, even as he said it, Joaquín knew he was, on some level, lying. This had absolutely been an incredible, lavish birthday, but every part of it felt so wrong without his sister enjoying the festivities at his side. Still, maybe there was a chance she would get the same amazing birthday. The plan to fess up to his father about Ariadna's "death" was still on, so if they somehow managed to retrieve her quickly enough then maybe they could throw her a party of her own .

As their flock trekked through the throngs of people in the plaza, a sudden shriek rang out from the farthest side, right around where the Narváez family was supposed to reconvene in about five minutes. The outcry seemed masculine, Joaquín thought, and pretty young. Worry creased his brow and quickened his pace just as it did to his siblings that were now on their tentative guard. Was something bad happening over there?

The sounds of scuffling on dry stone grew more distinct after Joaquín broke into a jog toward the meet-up place. Someone was shouting— a girl? She sounded amazingly angry as she demanded something in English.

Finally, he and his siblings came close enough to see what in the world was going on. Caesar was on the ground and clutching his midriff as if it pained him, and his twin had an arm locked into a choke hold around his throat after he had been brought to his knees. Miguel, his nose bloodied, was trapped in a mirrored predicament as Ramón, though he clung to a scrap of paper in one hand while the other fought to pry himself loose.

Standing behind them and pressing her knees into their kidneys, said attacker demanded in her most menacing voice, "Don't make me ask you again! Tell me where he is, dammit!" With how her hat's brim shielded her face from view when she leaned forward and looked down, it was impossible to tell her identity from her looks alone.

Joaquín felt his heart stop in his chest even as it leapt up to find a new home in his throat. Behind him, his younger brother and sisters started toward the "brawl," but he threw both arms out to stop them and quickly shoved his gift bag into the nearest hands, which happened to be AJ's. "Don't," he warned them in a low tone. "I'll handle this."

"What the hell is going on here?" he exclaimed, gesturing with both palms facing forward as he tried to process the sight before him. 

She couldn't help it, but her immediate reaction to hearing his voice after such a long month of separation was to tense up, which made her two captives squirm and gasp for air. Camry's head shot up and tossed her hat off without meaning to, but she absolutely could not care any less about that. Her fiery gaze locked with Dude's stunned expression, and for a split second she forgot how to breathe. Any and all wrath evaporated from her in that second, and she released Ramón and Miguel to unceremoniously drop onto their hands and knees.

And then she was running toward him, and he was running toward her and calling her name in laughter, and those few yards between them shrank faster than the human brain could ever hope to comprehend. Dude swept her off her feet immediately to spin her around even as he drew her flush to his body. "I can't believe it-- How did you-- you're here! You're actually  _here!_ " he exclaimed when he set her feet down on the ground and pulled back to look her in the eye.  

Well, he tried to pull back a bit, but Camry clung to him like what was left of her life depended on their proximity. Her face dropped onto his shoulder and stayed there as she fought through a bout of selective mutism to speak. The rush of euphoria at finally, finally finding him again wasn't quite what she had prepared herself for, and it quite literally left her speechless. Eyes closed and still struggling to breathe, she balled her hands into the back of his shirt and held on as he talked and talked. 

"How did you even find me?" he asked her, and that seemed to break the "spell" holding her tongue.

"Oh my god, Dude," Camry all but sobbed, "we— we've been looking for you— a whole fucking month—!" Was she shaking? That wasn't just her imagination, right? Maybe an earthquake had just started right then, or her phone in her back pocket had been left on vibrate mode by accident.

No, no, she was definitely shaking. And crying. Oh god, of course she was crying, and in her best friend's arms of all places. The adrenaline was draining from her limbs and being replaced with such an exquisite flavor of utter relief, but it was bringing along every single emotion for the ride. 

"Oh, god, Cam, please don't cry," he murmured just above her ear. She pushed back against his chest at that to try and see why his voice was so wobbly, too.

"I'm not crying!" she lied weakly. "It's— Mexico's really  _dusty_ , y'know?"

 _"_ Yeah," Dude snorted before he palmed at one eye to stem the tears winking to life in his eyes. "Yeah, I do know."

"We've been trying to find you for so long," she reiterated without moving away. Copying his motions, she wiped at the wet tracks on her cheeks. She didn't want to ever move away from right where she was, especially if it ensured that she wouldn't lose Dude again. "Jesus Christ, you are never gonna believe the stories we have to tell you!" 

"You didn't come by yourself, then?" Joaquín asked. "Who else is here?"

Of course, he already knew from the weird astral projecting dream some two weeks earlier that she and his sister were traveling together. Acting as if he didn't know that made plenty of sense when he considered the implication that he had somehow been present in the room while they were sleeping, which didn't sound good in basically every context known to man.

"Ari is!" Camry answered brightly.

"Ari's here, too?"

The delight on her face quickly morphed into horror, however, as the realization of what she had done finally dawned on her. "Oh, fuck me, I just abandoned her. Oh, she is gonna  _kill_  me!"

 _"_ Why would she kill you?" he laughed, mentally noting how plainly she was showing her myriad thoughts and emotions on her face.

"'Cause I got the first hug even though she made me promise to give that to her," Camry groaned. Even so, she didn't make any move to end their embrace, and neither did he. In fact, he pulled her in for another one and moved side to side a few times to really make his joy clear.

"I won't tell her," Dude promised before setting her down and letting go. The way Camry almost immediately tried to dive back into his arms but consciously fought back the urge was all too obvious, even to the bewildered spectators surrounding the two of them.

" _Ahem!_ " Speaking of spectators, a few specific teens were back on their feet again and angrily awaiting some sort of explanation for what exactly was going on. Ramón cleared his bruising throat again and leveled a heated glare at the deceptively unassuming girl that had been hugging Joaquín in such a familiar way.

"Who the hell is this?" he yelled. One hand massaged the column of his throat carefully. Next to him, Miguel pinched his nose closed to try and staunch the flow of blood. To make a brief and violent story even shorter, elbows had been thrown, and for all that his quick reflexes did for him, he hadn't moved away in time to avoid catching one in the face. Caesar was on his feet now, but he didn't look any happier than his twin did, and for good reason.

"Is my nose broken?" Miguel mumbled in Spanish. Caesar, wincing with the motions, leaned down a bit to peer into his brother's face and check the extent of the damage. Laia was at their side in an instant and grabbing his nose to wrench it back into place before he could protest. He let out a dull scream that died in his throat as quickly as it had been conjured, but Laia was as unfazed as ever. She frowned at the spots of blood on her hand and wiped them off on her shorts.

Joaquín looked up then and met the furious expressions on his siblings' faces. "Oh, shit— uh, are you guys okay?" he asked even as he drew Camry closer to his side.

"No!" Ramón answered. "And just who the hell is this crazy chick?" His opal eyes met Camry's iolite ones in a volcanic glaring match that neither teen had any intention of backing down from. 

"That's not the word you used for me earlier," she noted sharply.

"Uh— Cam, why were you beating the crap outta my brothers?" Joaquín asked. She lost the staring contest then to look, mortified, back at him.

"Wait, what?" she gasped, a hand reaching up to hover over her mouth. "Your  _brothers_?"

 _"_ Obviously!" Caesar snapped back. "Don't you see the resemblance?"

"You mean under all the blood and bruises?" she heard herself shoot back before the thought could fully register in her brain. "I'm not apologizing. You took my picture and tried to lie to me!" 

"Seems like we were right to try," Caesar barked, throwing an arm out wide to his side, "seeing how you're obviously bat-shit crazy!"

"Guys, hang on a second—" Joaquín started to say to try and placate the situation, but he was cut off by Camry pulling away from his side to stalk forward.

"Keep calling me crazy, mister, and I'll ensure your future as my lifelong punching bag!" she shouted. There was an obvious height difference between them, but it didn't stop her from somehow filling up more space than she should have been capable of occupying. "I took you down like it was nothing! It  _was_  nothing!"

"If you know what we are, you would know we don't usually take our anger out on  _regular_  people," Caesar replied as he metaphorically sank to her level. "But I'd be happy to make an exception for you."

"How generous," Camry scoffed. "I'll take that threat seriously when I start to take  _you_  seriously." 

Apparentlyit was about time for some interference. Joaquín and, to everyone else's surprise, Laia and Lucas stepped up to hold off the impending rematch. Both younger twins each latched onto one of Caesar's arms without actually pulling, but Joaquín just casually looped an arm around Camry's midriff and lifted her away. She yelped and scrambled to find a handhold, which turned out to be on his forearm. "H-Hey!"

"It's time to cool off, both of you," he stated calmly as he set her back down on the ground several yards away. " _Especially_  since we're in public."

"Oh, this is  _not_  over," she promised while pointing her index and middle finger at Caesar, then at herself. He responded with a flippant "Come at me" pose that actually lifted his two younger siblings off the ground for the briefest of seconds.

'Oh, damn, he's got some muscle on him' Camry noted in the back of her brain while Joaquín set her feet back down on the ground.

"Cam Cam Cam Cam Cam," he said in rapid succession, and his hand against the side of her face broke her line of sight to the rest of his siblings. "Where did you leave Ari?"

"Uhhh— oh, shit," she mumbled, the memories slowly trickling back. "We were looking at birthday presents, so... Oh! I remember now! I'll go get her!"

"Excuse me, but-- you'll go get  _who_?" 

The deep, masculine voice that had walked up behind Camry to send questioning looks at the two teens sent a chill of reckoning down their individual spines. Joaquín tried to swallow the lump in his throat and murmured in an odd tone, "Hey, uh, Cam, you wanna see me turn into the first witch ghost ever?" 

 

 

 

~*~

I have an extra special surprise for you all! This picture is a commission I had pngdraws on tumblr make for me a while back. Isn't it adorable? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well? What do you think of this extra long special chapter? I actually front-loaded a lot of the text at the end of this chapter a long time ago. I've been writing it in the notes on my phone for months now, so it was right there when I FINALLY reached this point in the story. 
> 
> Please leave a kudos if you feel so inclined and comment your thoughts down below! This has really been a labor of love for me and any support you can show is greatly appreciated! See you in the next chapter~


	29. Dependency

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RECAP: 
> 
> "Excuse me, but-- you'll go get _who?_ "
> 
> The deep, masculine voice that had walked up behind Camry to send questioning looks at the two teens sent a chill of reckoning down their individual spines. Joaquín tried to swallow the lump in his throat and murmured in an odd tone, "Hey, uh, Cam, you wanna see me turn into the first witch ghost ever?"

When Ricardo found Terese wandering down the lane of shops alone, he tried not to assume the worst. His one rule about letting his kids explore on their own was that they didn't go alone, and yet here he could plainly see that rule had been broken. "I don't know where Miguel went, Dad," Terese explained in her defense. "He didn't say anything to me!"

She stuck by his side after that and held her younger brother's hand to help the five-year-old keep up with the adults. Thomas and Trinidad were beaming with joy after getting to see and do so much at the festival. Camila looked a bit worn out from all the walking, but she was all too delighted to show Terese the new earrings she had bought at a stall. "They were marked down, too," she said. "The owner said someone already bought the matching pendant and broke up the set a few days ago."

As much as it pissed her off to be abandoned by her older brother, Terese said nothing of it and resigned herself to the fact that she would have had to meet up with her father soon anyway. Miguel knew when and where to meet them, and when he did show up she would be sure to smack him. Four o' clock was right around the corner when Ricardo took one look at Camila and decided it was time to head over to the lift station. What they saw there was something they definitely hadn't expected.

Miguel had flecks of blood on his bright orange shirt, and plenty more of the dark substance was smeared across his lips and chin. Ramón had a hand around his own neck to rub it gently, though he grimaced at the pain such contact caused. Caesar had Laia and Lucas holding him back by each arm as he stared down a short foreign girl wearing half of a shirt. All three boys looked as mad as Ricardo had ever seen them, and the rest of his children were just confused-- except for Joaquín. He lifted up the girl around her waist and carried her farther away from the group to talk to her, which also brought the two of them closer to Ricardo as he approached quickly. 

That was how he managed to overhear the words "--you leave Ari?" and "--looking at birthday presents. Oh! I remember now! I'll go get her!" 

Of course, Ricardo had to interject at that point, and the look of fear on his son's face wasn't anything he expected to see. 

"Hey, Dad," Joaquín said as the blonde whirled around to stare up at said man. It was clear that a thousand thoughts were running through her head at that very moment; her teary-eyed poker face was impossibly transparent. Joaquín, on the other hand, was doing his best to put up a casual and unbothered façade. "You'll never guess who I just ran into! Do you remember when I was telling you about my friends?"

At that very moment, Terese left her father's side to walk over to Miguel and peevishly flick his ear. With swift vengeance dealt, she asked him in a low voice, "Why were you  _bleeding?_ "

"I think I'm a little more interested in what you were just saying about your dead sister, mijo," Ricardo replied in a stern, no-nonsense tone. The blonde-- Carrie, if his memory was correct-- seemed frozen in place between father and son, and she shifted her gaze rapidly between the two. Her hands folded together to press down on her sternum and she bit her lower lip. 

"... Right." Joaquín sucked in a deep breath and glanced down at his friend. "Look, Dad, I was planning on telling you tonight. Ari's not dead. She was in hiding with my friends-- for her own protection." 

His siblings had drawn closer to listen during the conversation, so they had no trouble hearing that juicy tidbit of gossip straight from the horse's mouth. Several gasped, one sister let out a wordless yell of betrayal, and the rest fell completely silent to process such world-stopping information. Camila covered her mouth with one hand, and she angled her gaze up to take in the sight of Ricardo's stony face. 

"Joaquín," Ricardo began, his voice gravelly and dark, "we will discuss this at home. Go find your sister and bring her here this instant." 

Joaquín only nodded and gave Camry's shoulder a gentle nudge to coax her into moving to the side with him. Though it took an extra couple of seconds to get her to react, she soon enough grabbed his hand to lead him away at an artificially natural pace. In truth, her legs were stiff with the yearning to just take off running, but she didn't want to draw any more suspicion to herself before she knew she could make a clean get-away. The second they rounded a corner and were out of sight of the lift station, she tightened her grip on his hand and tugged harder. 

"C'mon, we have time to disappear before they notice," she said quickly. "Where's your mom? I can get us outta here in no time, and Ari's been practicing--" 

"What are you talking about, Cam?" he asked. 

"He  _kidnapped_ you, didn't he?" Camry shot back. They turned down onto the hill she had motored up only minutes ago and started back toward the lane of shops. She would have to retrace her steps from the chase, but she hoped that it would lead them both right to where Ariadna was. "We can get away while he's not looking!"

"I-- No, no, hang on," Joaquín said. He pulled on her hand, and she pivoted to look back and up at him quizzically. "Cam, I know things started out really crazy, but I'm not going to just run away. Besides, my mom is back home on the mountain. She's not here."

"Shit," Camry hissed before she started to continue down the hill. "I guess we'll have to figure out a way to get to her first, then."

"No, you're not listening to me," he insisted, and they stopped again. "Camry, they're my family, alright? I'm not going to disappear on them again. I really do belong with them."

She stared at him for a moment then, if just to take in the look of honesty on his face. "Dude, are... you under a spell?" 

He sighed at that and started forward, this time drawing even with her side. "Look, I know you're not going to believe me when I say this, but I was wrong about my dad. Kordelle was wrong about him, too, and he was the only source of info I had at the time. He's not a bad person at all."

"But he got so mad at you just a second--" 

"That's 'cause I was lying about Ari," he interjected. "I expected at least that much."

Camry blinked at him several times. "You told them all she was dead? How long were you planning on keeping  _that_ up?"

"Only until later tonight," was his answer. "I didn't want the party to be ruined for everyone else, and I knew he was going to be angry at me for lying to him."

Silence reigned between them as they waited for the crosswalk light to change and skirted around the lawn where the picnickers sat. Neither one broke contact the entire time, even as Camry struggled to understand what exactly was running through her best friend's mind. When the silence broke, she squeezed his hand and said, "Look, I don't... really get what's going on right now, but I don't want to lose you again. You've gotta let me come with you to-- to wherever it is you're going after this." 

"What?" Joaquín gasped, and his head whipped around to stare at her in shock. "Cam-- Cam, the mountain-- this is a  _coven stronghold_  we're talking about here." He only remembered to keep his voice lowered at the last second. "They know I don't hate ghosts, but that's not true for the rest of them. It would be way too dangerous for you to be there!" 

"And how do I know you won't disappear again?" Camry rebutted. "Huh? What if you just drop off the grid and they do an even better job of keeping you hidden this time?" 

'Great' she thought in exasperation, 'here come the waterworks again.' 

"You can't do that to me again," she sobbed. Even before she could finish her sentence, she was being wrapped in another embrace and allowed to cry into his shirt. "God, you can't-- y-you  _can't_ \--" 

"I won't," he promised into her hair. His right hand gently rubbed her heaving upper back while his left braced her securely. "Look, Cam, it's dangerous, but maybe... maybe I can convince them to let you stay for a day or two. It took Kordelle a while to figure you out, anyway." 

Her breathing regained control over itself at the sound of that, and she soon managed to slow her fresh bout of tears. "I have something to keep my identity a secret," she whispered. "It's new. I can wear it the whole time we're there. You won't have to worry about me getting caught." 

"Really?" Joaquín said. "What is it? Where did you get something like that?"

"I'll show you later," she answered. "It's in my bag back at the motel." 

Camry wiped her cheeks off and sucked in a deep breath to focus on keeping her tears in. Boy, what a day this had turned out to be. "Now, c'mon. Ari's gotta be worried sick about both of us by now."

They found her not too far from where Camry had left her. Ari seemed to have a headache when Camry spotted her leaning against the front of a store and clutching her temple. Eyes shut and breathing hard, Ari didn't see the two of them rush up to her until she jumped at Camry's light tap on her arm. Her complexion was an ashen version of her normal skin tone, and sweat had broken out on her forehead. Oh, god-- had she tried to listen to the world in broad daylight again? 

"Where the hell--?" she started to yell, but that stuck in her throat the second her white opal eyes swiveled three degrees to the left and landed on her twin brother's shining face. Cue another round of tearful hugging, complete with a side of Ari muttering a lot of the same things Camry had said after first reuniting with him. Cam stayed back a few paces to give them some space and sufficed with taking a covert photo as a memento of this auspicious day. 

After a second of thought, she forwarded the photo to Saoirse and attached a message that read "WE FOUND HIM!!!!!!!" followed by copious amounts of various celebration emojis. She didn't get a response right away, so she stowed her phone back in her pocket to await her girlfriend's inevitable reply. 

The twins eventually separated so Joaquín could sign to her, but Ari verbally launched right into the first of her thousand questions.

"Where the hell have  _you_ been?" 

Yikes, that was going to be a long story. 

~*~

On their way back to the station, Joaquín did his best to give both girls something of a run-down with the most important details of the last month. Thanks to her still-healing ankle and splitting headache, Ari had to ask for a piggyback ride a minute or so into the walk back. Since Joaquín needed his hands to sign, it only made sense for Camry to do it. 

"We need to get our stuff from the motel before we go anywhere," Camry remembered just before the station was in sight. 

"Right, right," he agreed. "Let's go meet up with Dad and tell him. Then we'll leave." 

Ariadna grimaced and reached out to pat her twin's shoulder. "Dude, are you sure about this? Everything Mamá said about him sounded so awful." 

"That's a long story," he signed. "Please just trust me, okay?" 

Her unamused frown contradicted her resigned, "Alright," but she didn't say anything more on the subject. Camry motioned for her to lean down to listen, and she did while allowing her hearing to expand just the tiniest bit. "Don't worry," Camry whispered to her and her alone, "I'll be ready to bolt at the first sign of danger." 

"Okay," Ari, a bit more reassured, answered. She leaned back and seemed to relax into her friend's sure hold on her legs. 

Joaquín's brows were nearly becoming one with his hairline when he saw their exchange-- though, of course, he didn't know what had been said. "Wait-- Wait, what? Ari can hear you? You can hear her?"

"We'll tell you about it later, Dude," Ari said with a knowing smirk that Camry couldn't help but match.

"Oh, and that reminds me," he piped up while signing. He had to admit that after a month of not needing to sign a single word, it felt so wonderfully familiar to talk with his hands as well as his mouth. "You guys should probably just call me Joaquín from now on. Nobody calls me Dude anymore, and it kinda... feels a little bit weird now." 

The next few minutes were a bit of a blur. Joaquín did his best to assure Ari that meeting their family would be fine-- great, even!-- and Ari said little else. Camry was silent as she mulled over the idea of not calling her best friend the same name she had always known him by. Not being someone who wanted to insist on using an outdated name, even if it was just a nickname, she quietly resigned herself to doing as he asked. The idea that he wasn't exactly the same person anymore still resonated like a faint echo throughout the crevices of her brain, try as she did to let that suspicion go. Then they were approaching the station again, and Ari was nervously running a hand through her ponytail and trying to shrink down behind Camry. Since she was taller than the blonde and still being carried on her back, it didn't work nearly as much as she would have liked. The time for her to dismount arrived too quickly, and she did so with a look of apprehension etched into her face.

While Joaquín made the introductions to their misty-eyed father, Ari found herself struggling to pay attention when there were so many eyes staring with such incredulity at her. Sure, she was absolutely intrigued by the fact that she was meeting the father she had literally never known before in her entire life, but out of the corner of her eye she could see about a dozen pairs of opalescent irises fixated on her with an astonishing level of intensity. 

"And here I thought the miracles were going to take a break for a while longer," Ricardo murmured under his breath as he took in the sight of his daughter-- his eldest daughter, as a matter of fact. She seemed nervous by how she fidgeted with her hair and had to keep returning her gaze to what her brother's hands were saying. As a tiny blast from the past, Ricardo couldn't help but remember how differently his introduction to Joaquín had been received. 

"Mija," he said, and with a barely perceptible jump Ari found herself focusing on his well-groomed face. His hands settled on her shoulders and stayed there as he said with the utmost sincerity, "Welcome home. We've missed you terribly." 

"Everyone," he continued in a much louder voice. Pivoting to address the rest of his children, Ricardo spoke in Spanish, "I want whoever can to start learning sign language from Joaquín right away. We want to make Ariadna feel as welcome as we can." 

Where Joaquín's initial introduction to the rest of the Narváez clan had been loud, energetic, and very fast-paced, Ariadna was approached with a cautious air of uncertainty-- well, mostly. To absolutely no one's surprise, Ramón was the first to jump right in, and he grinned wide the whole time he hugged his sister. Ari awkwardly patted his back and pulled away with a quizzical look on her face. After suffering the exhaustion of trying to listen for Camry when she had run off without warning, she wasn't too keen on the idea of wearing herself out further by listening to anyone or anything else for a while. That left Joaquín up to the task of translating to help fill in the gaps her lip-reading couldn't quite fill. 

One by one, her new siblings introduced themselves. Several were given sign language names right off the bat; it was apparently something Joaquín had given some thought to over the last month, though he had never shared it with anyone except his mother. In the meantime, Camry ran the inside of her thumb up and down a long side edge of her tank top and watched from several paces away. She couldn't decipher the language when they switched to Spanish signs, but she was hyper-vigilant for any hints toward danger. Did she suspect anything of the sort from these teenage witches? Not especially, though she honestly didn't know what to expect at all. This was all uncharted territory, and the only guide she had was currently being called into question. 

Ricardo couldn't have sneaked up on her even if he wanted to. Out of the corner of her eye, Camry watched his approach as if she was channeling the traits of a falcon. He kept a respectful distance and offered her a smile. "You're Camry, right? My name is Ricardo Narváez. My son has told me a bit about you." 

Her thumb paused in its anxious rubbing on her shirt to let her grip the white fabric fiercely. "Hi." 

Ah, so this was going to be much more like when he first met Joaquín. She was guarded, unyielding in her preconceptions just like his son had been. With a soft sigh, Ricardo resigned himself to once again taking up the burden of clearing his name to yet another teenager. He could already tell that she was going to be a tough nut to crack. His magic dealt with the intricacies of emotions, which gave him quite the affinity for picking someone apart and finding the source of their internalized problems. It was what made him such a sought-after psychiatrist, after all.

"I guess you didn't get the best first impression from a few of my sons, huh?" he said, a gentle mirth added to his tone. "It looks like you know more than enough about how to take care of yourself, though. Don't worry, I can talk to them about whatever it was they did." 

Camry stared hard at the ground a few yards in front of her feet when she replied with a quiet "It's fine. Not worth it." 

"Don't say that," he said quickly. "I want to hear both sides of the story at some point. It would be better to smooth things over sooner rather than later, too." 

She didn't respond to that, and he didn't try to press any further. It was bad enough that the fight had drawn so much attention from everyone waiting around to board the lift, so the last thing the Narváez family needed was to stick around any longer. Ricardo made the announcement that they were leaving the floating acre, which prompted Joaquín to rush over and quietly explain the situation regarding Ari and Cam's luggage. To make a long and painfully arduous story much shorter, most of the family waited outside the station while Ricardo escorted the day's three centers of attention to the motel so they could grab their things. 

It took some digging among her freshly laundered clothes, but Camry found exactly what she was looking for almost as soon as Ari unlocked the door to their room. She gave the inhibitor a serious once-over and settled it on her left forearm, making sure to fix it where it wasn't too tight or too loose. The device had been made specially for her, after all, so it fit like a glove-- er, like a ghost powers-controlling cuff. Its gentle click as it was locked into place was surprisingly audible, so Camry did her best to act nonchalant as she felt its effects begin to spread throughout her body. By the time she was zipping up her backpack again, she could safely say that she couldn't feel any part of her core resonating within her.

She could also say that it felt like something physical was missing from inside her rib cage, and it left her with a persistent chill running up and down her spine. 

Ari had a secret hidden in her own pack, so when she reached the motel room she made sure that it was safe in the bottom of her bag. The spell book had certainly been in more careful hands before it was stolen, but none of the pages had been lost over the course of the last month. She counted that as a win. The book stayed under her clothes and toiletries, where it was safe with the extra padding to protect it from being jostled around. They left the motel behind and didn't look back once their key cards rested on the front desk.

Even from a fair distance away and blocked by the language barrier, Camry had no trouble guessing that Joaquín was doing his best to plead with his father about something. She shifted her backpack on her shoulders and leaned sideways to pester Ari for her attention. "What do you think he's saying to him right now?" 

"Hmm," Ari hummed as she matched Camry's pace and studied what she could see of their profiles. "Well, I would assume it's about how much trouble he's in right now, but it's hard to say. Oh, that was your name. I think Dude's convincing him to let you stay with us." 

Lucky for the two of them, their voices were quiet enough to go unheard when father and son were discussing matters at hand so emphatically. "Dad, I know you're mad at me for lying to you, but please let Camry stay with us. Even if it's for just a couple of days-- we haven't seen each other or talked or anything for over a  _month!_ "

"At least you understand why I'm not so quick to say yes to something like that," Ricardo said. With his hands in his pockets, he closed his eyes for a few seconds and furrowed his brow. "It's bad enough that an outsider knows about our people." 

"She's cool about it, I swear," Joaquín jumped in immediately. "We can trust her to keep everything a secret." 

"I should hope so for her sake." The vague threat of consequences hung like a wispy fog in the air between them for a moment. 'Good' Ricardo couldn't help but think. 'He's starting to take coven secrecy seriously.' 

"Alright," Ricardo sighed. "Alright. She can stay with us for a few days-- for  _Ari's_ sake," he added just as Joaquín positively lit up with delight. "It's going to be a bit of a challenge to help everyone adapt to this change, and your sister seems to get along with her well enough. I want Ari to feel comfortable on the mountain and learn to think of it as a home just as much as you have, mijo.

"But Camry can't stay for forever. A week _at most_. Don't think I'm rewarding you after you lied to us all." 

"Thank you so much, Dad," Joaquín said with a beaming grin nearly splitting his face in two. He spun to look at his best friend and twin talking quietly to one another a few paces behind and gave them two victorious thumbs up. Camry pumped her fist into the air silently and Ari sighed over-dramatically with a hand on her chest. 

The ride back to the mountain was a bit on the cramped side now that there were two extra passengers to accommodate. Naturally, Joaquín and Ari rode together so he could help translate despite how Ari told him that she would be alright without the extra help. It took some shuffling around, but both adult chaperones agreed that Camry shouldn't be stuck in the same car as Caesar, Miguel, and Ramón before Ricardo had a chance to resolve whatever tension there was among the four of them. That's how the majority of the girls ended up in one car while the boys rode in the other. 

"Okay, I gotta ask." Olivia was the first one to say something in English to Camry about ten minutes into the trip. After the solitude of just listening to the sisters speaking in Spanish to one another, the blonde was a bit startled to be addressed out of the blue. "What the heck did they do? To get beat up, I mean." 

"O-Oh, uh, well," Camry stammered for a few seconds before finding her tongue again, "th-the boy with the orange T-shirt took something of mine-- it was a photograph that I was using to ask around for Du-- Joaquín. And when he ran to the other two, they tried to lie to me about the whole thing. And then they taunted me with the photo!"

She threw her hands forward in an exasperated motion before continuing quietly. "But I guess I got kinda carried away, too. So, I'm really sorry about the whole thing."

In the driver's seat, Camila nodded silently to herself as her way of accepting the apology. Miguel was her son, after all, though she couldn't say she didn't feel at least a little bit of sympathy for Camry after hearing what had happened. Olivia grinned wide and leaned in close to whisper in Camry's ear. "Don't be sorry, chica. I'm Olivia, and you're my hero."

"Huh?" Camry replied as she stared with wide iolite eyes. 

"What do you mean, 'Huh?'" asked the girl who was definitely Olivia's twin. She stood partway out of her seat to lean over the back of Olivia's row. "You're living our dream! How many times  _a day_  do you think we wish we could get away with beating up our brothers for doing that kind of thing to us?" 

"Lucky," Trinidad quipped enviously from Camry's other side. 

AJ looked the stunned blonde up and down. "You must not have siblings if that surprises you." 

"Yeah, I'm an only child," Camry admitted sheepishly. "Is it that obvious?"

"Majorly," Olivia giggled. 

The car ride ended with Camry hoping that she and Joaquín's sisters could become fast friends. That initial ice breaker had been exactly the right thing to kick start a fun and friendly conversation among all the girls, and the mountain was in sight in what felt like no time at all. They helped her learn the names of everyone living on the mountain and asked questions about the journey she'd taken to get all the way down to Durango's capital. And when they crossed the ravine on the cable car ("So cool!" Camry exclaimed before she could stop herself) and arrived at the complex, Joaquín got to watch his mother get the surprise of her life the second Ari stepped out of the car. 

Ari was on the verge of opening the door before the car had even stopped moving. Her mother was waiting by the fountain with a wrapped gift in her hands and two other women at her side. Their reunion nearly dropped Marina to her knees as Ari leaped out of the vehicle and hit the ground running, arms flown wide open to hug her mother at long last. "Mijita!" Marina gasped, and with a muffled "Oof!" she accepted the tackle of an embrace. Oh god, how she had missed her daughter. All those days spent worrying over her safety sloughed off in an instant, leaving both mother and child feeling several tons lighter. 

Their family was finally complete again. When Ari pulled back to smile tearfully, Marina cupped her face with both hands and swiped away the tears on her cheeks. She didn't say anything because she didn't need to. Glancing over to her left, Marina gasped yet again at the sight of Camry standing there with two backpacks slung over her shoulders. 

"Thank you, Camry," Marina said softly. She beckoned for her to come closer, and after hesitating about what to do with her baggage, Camry set both packs down on the ground and walked right into a warm hug of her own. "I knew she would be alright if she was with you. I'm so glad you're both safe." 

"I could say the exact same thing about you and Joaquín," Cam replied. With one final squeeze, she pulled away and smiled at Marina. "We were both so worried for the longest time." 

"No need to worry anymore." She signed to her daughter with swift but sure gestures and grinned at the flabbergasted look on Ariadna's face. Camry didn't need help translating most of the message: "I have a surprise for you, Ari." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should I include a family chart of some kind in the notes soon? I'm sure it's been hard to keep track of so many characters-- god only knows how hard it's been for me, and I MADE them -_- Let me know in the comments, okay? 
> 
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated, and I hope you'll stick around for when I update again! Senior year of college (0_0) is breathing down my neck, so I hope that I'll be able to update at least once in a while throughout the year. I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens.


	30. Domesticity

Eleanor Mahadeo had had enough of her daughter's moping, and she was going to do something about it. Up until Dude's actual birthday, she had been able to tolerate the bouts of moodiness and perpetual disinterest Saoirse exhibited because they were minor enough to brush off. The same was no longer true when her younger brothers' playing had caused her to snap at them without warning that very morning. 

"Alright, that's enough," Eleanor barked when she heard the arguing begin from within the living room. She emerged from her and Harris's bedroom to loom sternly over her children. "Saoirse, go to your room. I'll be there in a minute to talk to you about your attitude. I don't want to see you on any electronics when I walk in there, either."  

With a growled huff, Saoirse stalked off to her room and restrained her urge to slam the door shut at the very last second. Through the door, she could faintly hear her brothers loudly complaining to their mother. That lasted for all of ten seconds before Eleanor settled them both down and spoke too quietly to be heard all the way from Saoirse's room. A pair of angry footsteps ascended the stairs a minute later, and true to her word Eleanor entered her daughter's room. Saoirse had backed off from the door to sit on her bed, which was where her mother found her with both knees drawn up to her chin and a stormy expression on her face. 

"This has gone on long enough, Saoirse," Eleanor said. She closed the door behind herself and moved to stand next to the bed without touching it. "I understand that you're upset about everything that's been happening these last few weeks, but you  _cannot_ take it out on Aidan and Liam. That's not how we treat members of our family." 

Saoirse said nothing, though her chin slipped behind her knees enough to hide her mouth from view. Eleanor let out a heavy breath and sank down onto the edge of the bed. "I want you to go out there and apologize to them both. Mean it, too. And give them each a hug. There'll be no going over to Avery's workshop for the rest of the week, either." 

"But, Mum--!" Saoirse started to protest. 

"I  _mean_ it, Saoirse," Eleanor insisted. "You spend more time over there than you do here with your family. I'm worried about how that's affecting your emotional state."

"I'm doing important work with her, Mum!" Saoirse tried again. "I'm  _so_ close to cracking the frequency puzzle, and once I do--" 

"You'll 'be able to deflect ghosts' vocal attacks,' yes," her mother groaned. "I know what you're trying to do, dear." She placed a hand on Saoirse's knee and let it rest there. "It's admirable that you're so dedicated to a project like this, but you cannot keep dropping off the grid to spend time with some disgraced scientist you just met. Isolation like that isn't healthy, especially for someone your age."  

"Who else am I supposed to spend time with?" Saoirse shot back in a low voice. "Camry and Dude are both  _gone_ , Mum. For all I know, they're both dead in a ditch somewhere south of the border..." 

Eleanor raised an unconvinced eyebrow at that and asked, "Do you  _really_ think that's where they are right now? In a ditch?"

"... Well, no, but--" she started to say, but when the words wouldn't come to her she fell silent for a moment. "At least with Avery, I'm helping by doing something actually useful with my time." 

"Making sure you're okay inside is still a good use of your time," Eleanor said. Reaching out, she tucked a strand of her daughter's hair behind her ear and smoothed down its waves carefully. "Goodness, your hair has gotten longer than I thought. Why didn't you tell me it was already past your waist?" 

"I didn't think about it," Saoirse mumbled. Her pink tourmaline eyes were downcast as she mulled over the coming hours she would have to spend doing... what, exactly? Her time had been so occupied with research and sound editing as of late that she had forgotten the other ways she could be spending her summer. 

"Well, I know that a haircut always brightens your mood," Eleanor said. "And I've been itching to go to the market for some fresh fruit. Let's get out of the house for a while-- or the 'lab,' I guess." 

It was a small attempt at humor, and Saoirse appreciated how it gently tugged at one corner of her lips. "Okay... Yeah, I guess that sounds alright." 

She started to reach for her phone charging in its docking station, but a sudden sound from her mother stayed her hand. "Leave that here, sweetie. I think you're overdue for a little face-to-face time." 

"But what if Camry calls me?" Saoirse asked. "I won't be able to help her if she needs me." 

"What can you do to help her from all the way over here?" Eleanor pointed out. "Camry will be fine on her own for a few hours, Saoirse, and you need to unplug for a while." 

She so wanted to argue the matter further, but the part of her that was weary down to her bones won out. When the thought occurred to her that she could still take her phone with her and try to act like she didn't have it, she shook her head and silently finished pinning her hijab into place. Maybe her mother was right about this. Saoirse was lonely without her friends at her side, but her phone wasn't enough to substitute for the gap they had left behind. Besides, she didn't want to take the risk of upsetting her mother further after she had extended this gracious peace treaty. 

So, after apologizing to her younger brothers and hugging them both as she had been told, Saoirse followed her mother out the door and spent the next few hours shopping. They dropped into their favorite hair salon, which was exclusively run by Muslim women on the other side of the city, and chatted with the available hairdresser and each other the entire time Saoirse sat in the chair. Her neck felt noticeably unburdened after about six inches of hair had been cut away, and she had to admit that she was in a much better mood by the time her snipped locks were being swept into a garbage pail. 

Most of the remaining afternoon was spent at the marketplace. Mother and daughter mulled together over the different late summertime options laid out before them, which included some of the aforementioned fruit Eleanor had wanted. With peaches and nectarines stacked high on their tables, the idea to bake something came to Saoirse's mind. Her mother reluctantly agreed to it, though not without the condition that Saoirse had to help her make it. The back seat of the family car was loaded with groceries when they returned home not long before dinnertime. 

Despite how mundane it was, Saoirse couldn't help but think that her afternoon had been a good one. She felt lighter, freer, and infinitely more relaxed than she had been for the past four weeks. Looking at the dark screen of her cell phone as it rested on her bedside table, she shrugged and turned away without bothering to take it with her. She had managed to get by without it for this long, after all, and her mother was waiting in the kitchen for her while gathering ingredients to bake a peach and nectarine cobbler. 

When Harris Mahadeo returned from a very long series of university board meetings to a house filled with the smell of baking dessert and smiling faces, he could not have been happier to be home. Dinner conversation was lively and the cobbler afterward, though a little sweeter than Eleanor had intended, was delicious. As Saoirse ate her portion of dessert, she silently dedicated it to Dude's birthday and found that the idea didn't hurt her conscience anymore. After a day without ghost attacks, storms, earthquakes, or working herself to exhaustion, she had to admit that things were starting to look up again.

Saoirse excused herself to go up to her room when dessert was finished. Liam and Aidan went into the living room to play video games against each other, and Harris took over getting the dishes started while Eleanor cleared the table. It was probably thanks to sheer luck that neither adult was handling something particularly breakable or sharp when a scream tore through the air from upstairs. Footsteps thundered down the stairs and almost slipped on the carpet, but Saoirse kept her footing and all but barreled into the kitchen. There, she found her parents with panicked looks on their faces, but she was too swept up in her emotions to care about how she had scared the living daylights out of them both. 

Her hands shook as they gripped her cell phone far tighter than necessary. "They found him! They found him, they found him, they found him!" seemed to be the only thing she could say. Saoirse threw her arms around her father and said it again and again. 

"Are you talking about Dude?" Harris asked her, and she nodded emphatically with the side of her head resting on his upper arm. Still steamed about the scream, Eleanor eased the phone out of her daughter's hand and took a steady look at the most recent messages from Camry: a photograph of Dude and Ariadna hugging, and an enthusiastic "WE FOUND HIM!!!!!!!" accompanied by at least a dozen emojis. 

"Oh, thank goodness," Eleanor sighed, one hand clapped firmly over her heart. Saoirse was still hugging her father and rocking side to side from her joy. Poor Harris wanted to at least return the hug, but his arms were a little soapy and regrettably pinned to his sides. "Oh, subhan Allah, thank goodness." 

Of course, the next logical step would be to call Camry and try to find out as many details as possible. Eleanor wasted no time in doing just that from Saoirse's phone, though as the ringing continued for six times and counting, her excitement and relief began to dwindle. The message was about two hours old, which gave plenty of time for Camry's phone to die, but Eleanor would be hearing a message about it if that were the case. Saoirse eventually let go of her father to wait next to her mother and hug her arm in anticipation. She bounced up and down on the balls of her feet with such happiness, much to the amusement of her brothers when they walked into the kitchen one after the other. 

"... Huh," Eleanor murmured when she took the phone away from her ear. Ten rings were excessive, even if the phone was working correctly. A message about how the call could not be completed should have played by then. "That's... strange."

"Is something wrong?" Saoirse asked quietly. Apprehension slowly filled in the space left behind by her ebbing joy, and it showed on her face. 

"She's just not answering, sweetie," she replied while handing the cell back to its rightful owner. "Try again in an hour. I'm sure everything is fine." She punctuated her statement with a firm hug that Saoirse eagerly returned. As far as she was concerned, this news couldn't ruin her mood so easily. 

"Yeah, I bet you're right, Mum. I'm gonna call Camry's parents and tell them!" She took off toward the stairs only to be stopped by her father's voice calling out to her. After retracing her steps and poking her head around the doorway to the kitchen, she answered with a curious "Yeees~?"

"Don't ever scare us like that again, Saoirse," he groaned. 

"I'm sorry," she whispered sheepishly, and with that she was gone. The good news needed to be shared!

~*~

Even the most socially adept of people could sense the animosity between Joaquín and his father when they both returned from the latter's office. After arriving at the coven complex and finishing the last of the necessary introductions, Ricardo had spirited his son away to have that discussion he had promised earlier. To anyone who had passed by the closed office door during the discussion, they would not have heard a sound even with the most sensitive of hearing conduits. Their exchange could have gone much smoother, to say the least. 

"I just don't understand, Joaquín," Ricardo began after instructing the boy to have a seat on the couch against the wall. Behind his desk, he sat up straight to assume a tall, commanding figure. "I don't understand why you would feel the need to lie to me. To  _us_. What in the world makes you think it's okay to do something like this?"

"Look, Dad, I--" Joaquín started to say, but then thought over his words a second time and paused to take in a deep breath. "This isn't the first coven I've been accepted into, alright? And that ended really badly. I was betrayed by someone I thought I could trust. He tried to lock me inside my apartment and tricked me about a dozen times!" 

"And you thought the same would happen with your own family?" Ricardo asked with wide, disbelieving eyes. 

"I-- Maybe? I dunno!" he answered, and one hand waved in a noncommittal gesture. "Everything was happening so fast, and I still thought you were the bad person that Kordelle told me you were."

"But you got to know me. You got to know your brothers and sisters," his father pointed out. "You've been here with us for  _weeks_. Are you trying to tell me you didn't have a single chance in all of that time to tell us the truth?" 

"I was gonna tell you today!" Joaquín said. He rose to his feet and squared up on the other side of the solid desk cluttered with all kinds of things: books, papers, and legal pads were what made up most of the typical mess. "I just didn't want to ruin the birthday party, alright? And sometime after the first two weeks, I figured you would be really angry that I didn't tell you right away, but I didn't know if Ari would even want to be here. I wanted to be sure." 

"You weren't wrong about me being angry," was his stormy reply, "because I am  _very_ angry. How could you think your sister wouldn't want to be with the rest of her family? She has  _always_ belonged here."

Joaquín rested a hand on his hip and resisted the urge to groan. "I know her better than anyone, Dad." 

Ricardo took a moment to think rather than answer right away. "And your mother knew all of this, too." 

A thrum of worry vibrated like a plucked guitar string inside Joaquín's gut. "I asked her to go along with what I said. We were both afraid... at first."

"This is ridiculous," Ricardo sighed. He dropped his head into his hands for a few seconds, then looked back up at his son again. "I'm confiscating your phone. When we have service up here, you're not going to be allowed on the Internet. There will be no free time for you to play around or do anything other than study in the library or your room. Not fun subjects, either-- no ghosts, no seances, no nothing. Only history and basic magic. The restrictions will be lifted when I decide that you've learned your lesson." 

As he took in his punishment, Joaquín said little. His defiant facial expression said it all for him. "Fine." 

"And don't expect to be seeing much of your friend while she's here, either," Ricardo added as an afterthought. "She's here for Ari, not for you."

"She's  _worried_ about me--" he tried to argue, but he was cut off before he could say much else.

"And now she isn't anymore because she's seen you and knows you're alright." Ricardo stood up and held out an expectant hand. His son looked at it for a moment before he realized what he wanted and dug around in his pocket for his phone. With the device firmly pressed into his father's hand, Joaquín glowered specifically at the stapler sitting innocently beside a stack of documents. Ricardo dropped the phone in the same drawer as Joaquín's old one and locked it away with a silent spell. 

"... At least let me explain to Camry how I'm grounded so she won't get worried again," he said softly. 

"Why are you so concerned with her being worried?" Ricardo asked, more than just a little fed up with this conversation.

"Uh, because she has  _anxiety_ ," Joaquín shot back. "Because she panicked about my disappearance and decided the best thing to do was to drop everything and  _backpack across Mexico_  to find me." 

Even Ricardo had to admit that he had a point there. "Alright. Go tell her, and then it's straight to your room. I'll be the one to explain everything to your siblings." 

They parted ways after that, and the first thing Joaquín did after shutting the office door behind himself was to make a beeline for Laia and Lucas' house. The surprise that Marina had promised Ari turned out to be her very own room fashioned out of the last available guest bedroom, so it made sense for Ari to be investigating her new quarters. As it turns out, Marina's feng shui found a creative outlet of its own after all. Decorating and fixing up the room in her spare time had been the perfect distraction for avoiding the urge to spill the beans herself and bring her daughter back into her arms that much sooner. 

After entering the house and taking a few steps in, Joaquín heard Ari's rare laugh from down the hall and scurried over to the open doorway. His twin and best friend were inside along with a stunned Marina staring back and forth at both girls as they tried not to outright cackle at her expression. They all looked at the door when he walked in and blinked at the scene before him. "What's so funny?" 

"Mom's disappointed in us for scamming people out of their money," Ariadna answered. Nothing about the way she said it made it seem like she was actually sorry about it, though. "We were talking about some of our adventures." 

"Ohhh," he said. "Cool. I can't wait to hear for myself. But that's gotta wait, 'cause I have to talk to you both." Joaquín shut the door behind himself and made quick work of sealing it with a rune so no one could overhear them if they happened to walk by. He had made sure to watch his father closely whenever he used the same rune to ensure privacy inside of his office.

With that done, he turned around and assessed the room. "Okay, I am in  _major_ trouble with Dad." By force of habit, he signed everything he said in tandem with his words. "I'm basically gonna be stuck inside the library or my room all day to study."

He chuckled to himself, though it came out a bit darker than he intended. "I guess there aren't that many ways he can ground me when we're already cut off from the rest of the world." 

"Do you know how long?" Ari asked. He shook his head at that.

"No. It might be days or even weeks." 

"Ultimate home school," Camry said softly. Seated on the edge of Ari's new four-poster bed, she drew one knee up to her chin and hugged her leg with both arms. It unintentionally put her new accessory on display.

"You're not wrong," Joaquín agreed. His dark eyes fell on the matte silver cuff around her forearm, and he frowned. "Wait, is that the thing you mentioned earlier? That keeps you safe?"

"Oh, uh, yeah," she answered in a halting voice. "I guess I'd better come up with an excuse to never take it off." 

"Where'd you get it, anyway?" 

Ah, yes. The million dollar question. Unfortunately, after so much excitement in the measly span of one afternoon, the last thing Camry wanted to do was cry in front of her best friend  _again_. Telling him the truth about its origins would undoubtedly draw up fresh saltwater from the well, so she sucked in a quick but quiet breath and blew it out. "Seersh and I met a scientist who's interested in ghosts. She's really nice and has already helped us out a lot, so you don't need to worry about her. She made this for me so I could be normal again." 

"Whoa, really?" Joaquín gasped, his opalescent eyes blown wide. "That's so cool! I hope I get to meet her some day."

"Of course you will," Camry sputtered with a gesture toward him. "She lives right in town. Once we get back to Bailey Lake, I'll be sure to introduce you." 

A small part inside of him drooped a bit at the way she had been so blasé about the idea of going back to Bailey Lake. After a month on the mountain, it was becoming clear that his siblings didn't spend nearly any of their time away from the coven stronghold. With Joaquín essentially grounded in one of the only ways he could be at this point, it was starting to look like that was also going to be his fate. The way his father talked about Bailey Lake, which was almost never, carried a tone of such disdain that he obviously thought the city would be better if no one touched it with a mile-long pole ever again. Going back? Probably not in the cards.

"Okay, well, don't take that off, even if you think you're safe," Joaquín continued. "There's a barrier over the whole mountain, and I have no idea if it'll react to having a ghost inside of it. That's not a risk I think we should take."

"A wise decision," Camry, a little stunned to find this out, said with a shallow nod of her head. 

Marina, after explaining her unexpected name change to her less than pleased daughter, was quick to explain the set-up of life on the mountain. The two girls more or less got the gist of how the coven operated on a daily basis, so there hopefully wouldn't be too many surprises in store for either. The idea of learning real magic from an instructor and reading an endless supply of books left Ariadna positively starstruck. What few spells she did know were only because of the moons, which weren't the most reliable of teachers both on and off-planet. 

"Things are gonna be alright," Joaquín said once Marina finished ticking off points on her fingers. "We'll be alright. This is our family, for better or for worse. They're nothing like what Kordelle said they were." 

'I hope you're right about that' was all Camry could think as her hand settled lightly on the locked cuff. It was heavy, and to wear it dredged up an entire slew of bad memories, but she was going to have to get used to wearing it if she wanted to find the time to convince Dude to come back with her. Even if it took all summer, she wasn't going back to Bailey Lake alone-- if at all.

~*~

Saoirse's celebrating had to be cut short, much to her disappointment, when yet another earthquake shuddered through the city without notice. At this point, the citizens were starting to become experts about enacting their safety drills at the drop of a hat, but this quake left all previous experiences in the dust. Up in her room, Saoirse had no trouble hearing the sounds of shattering dishes coming from all the way in the kitchen. She was up in a second and dashed down the stairs on heavy, unsteady feet. 

Just as her foot left the last step, a thunderous crack split the air. The sound itself was like a solid wall pressed against her back, and it urged her to move a little quicker. Saoirse hunkered down in a doorway and arched herself over Liam's huddled form, which had shrunken in a fetal position with his shoulder wedged against the door frame. Her little brother shivered harder and harder with each new blasting crack, but neither moved a muscle until the rocking and rumbling finally ceased. Slowly, with the strained posture of a prey animal ready to run at a moment's notice, the two of them rose to their full heights. 

"Whoa..." Liam breathed, somewhat in shock but mostly in awe. His amber eyes were fixed on the staircase-- or, at least, what was left of it. Vein-like breaks ran up and down the steps, bisected the walls of the hallway itself, and rained bits of plaster and drywall with every air current that whispered past. There was no way anyone would be going up those steps anytime soon. 

"Kids, get over here," Harris Mahadeo hissed quickly from the other side of the dark kitchen. "We have to go outside  _right now_. Hurry!"

Warily, the two of them eyed the wreckage of dinnerware littered across the kitchen floor. The freshly-washed dishes had been drying in a rack on the counter, but that had toppled over almost as soon as the quake began. Shards of china and glass were everywhere, and neither sibling had any more than socks on their feet. 

"Ugh," Saoirse grumbled before crouching down and telling Liam to climb up for a piggy-back ride. "C'mon, it'll be faster this way." 

Liam hopped on too quickly and sent her stumbling forward; the sturdy foot she put forward was echoed by another cracking sound and a shower of dusty particles falling on their heads. They looked up and saw that several chasms had formed a web-like network right over them, and the weight of whatever was in the room above was starting to make the ceiling cave in. Harris motioned urgently with both hands while Eleanor and Aidan hovered uncertainly by the open front door. 

Saoirse set her jaw and tore her pink tourmaline gaze away from the impending collapse to focus on the task at hand. Through the kitchen was the fastest way to the front door, and if she picked the right path she could get around the danger without injury. That was the theory, anyway. Her first steps were easy enough since the closest light bulbs were still intact, if unlit. Soft and eerie clinking sounds echoed quietly through the suspense, and more than once she gingerly set a foot down only to pull back with a sharp hiss. Liam clung tightly to her shoulders, filling her left ear with the sounds of his fearful breathing. 

"Almost, almost," Harris coaxed with more gesturing in between his glances toward the door. His wife and other son were already outside, though they refused to go any farther than past the front porch. 

Finally, after what felt like a lot longer than it really had taken, Saoirse jumped over the last few feet of space and found her and her brother whisked out of the house before she could do much more than blink. She spilled onto the grass of her family's front lawn and immediately started to inspect the soles of her feet. "Just a couple of cuts," she announced happily. "Nothing's embedded inside." 

"I'm glad," Eleanor sighed as she extended a hand down to help her daughter stand. 

As a family, the five of them took a moment to survey what they could see of their house from outside. A dip that hadn't been in the ground an hour ago ran under one side of the foundation, and without the extra support given to houses in areas that predicted earthquakes, that had let one side of the house sag lower than the other. The stairs weren't the only casualty: it looked as if the entire upper level was at risk of peeling off the lower floor if the house sagged any more. 

In the meantime, all up and down the street the neighbors were rushing out of their houses and calling out to those they knew. If this was what it was like in just their neighborhood... what had happened to the rest of the city? A moment after the thought crossed her mind, Saoirse's phone buzzed in her pocket. It was a call from Mrs. Sadie, as the caller ID read. She answered without a second's hesitation and held the phone up to her ear. 

"Saoirse, is everything alright? I tried to call your mom but she's not answering me!" Sadie gasped on the other end. 

"We're alright, Mrs. Sadie," Saoirse replied. "I bet her phone's somewhere inside right now. We're, uh, probably not going to be able to go back in for a while." 

Eleanor took charge from there and gratefully agreed to stay at the Dowell home until things settled down. Even just a few blocks away, it sounded like the ground was a little bit steadier. "We'll be right over, Sadie. You're a lifesaver." She hung up and handed back the cell to its rightful owner. 

"Alright, let's get going," Harris sighed. 

"Dad, Dad!" Aidan exclaimed suddenly as he tugged on the hem of his father's shirt. He asked what the matter was, and Aidan eagerly shouted, "Are we gonna get a new house? Can I have my own room if we do?  _Please?_ "

"Priorities," Saoirse huffed under her breath. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO SORRY for how long it's taken me to update!! College life is brutal in taking up your free time and energy, so I'm hoping to make up for a lot of that during winter break. That's only a few weeks away, so get ready for updates then! 
> 
> As always, please comment your thoughts down below and leave a kudos if you feel like it! (If you wanna, you could wish me a happy 21st birthday while you're at it //>.> y'know... just cuz... XD)


	31. Sonnet 27

I really had no idea what to think after we arrived at the compound nestled in the cloaked mountain. Conversation with my half-brothers was awkward for the majority of the trip, and my annoyance toward Joaquín was rising as he continued to translate for me despite how I repeated that he didn't need to. Our dad drove in what I assumed was silence; with his back turned to me the entire time, I couldn't easily tell if he ever said anything. There wasn't much of an "instant connection" being made-- and a part of me was a little disheartened to watch the stiffness amplify as the better part of an hour passed. The only one who seemed able to maintain momentum throughout it all was Ramón, the first one of my half-siblings that had readily come up to meet me.

Seeing Mamá again was a breath of fresh air after the stuffiness of the car. I couldn't believe how much I missed her over the last month! Our journey was finally starting to become worth all the effort, but it wasn't over yet. So far, I wasn't entirely convinced by what my brother was saying about this place, and I wasn't ready to trust it so soon. These people, relatives or not, were the ones who had taken my only family from me in the first place. 

I stuck to Camry's side as we were guided through the complex and given a tour of the different buildings. If it hurt Joaquín to see how I wasn't relying on him, I didn't pretend to notice. As it was, his integrity was still up in the air. What little I knew of magic told me it was more than capable of venturing unchecked into risky, morally gray territory, and a month of complete radio silence from him didn't give me the best opinion of where his mind might be. 

Between the four main houses, I got glimpses of all kinds of touches of personality: a lush garden guarded by wooden stakes decorated with what I assumed were warding charms, stone workshops, clotheslines with laundry fluttering in the mountain breeze, and a well-loved soccer ball sitting in the middle of a huge patch of short grass were only part of what caught my attention. The entire area sat squarely on a plateau of sorts, with the peak of the mountain rising higher than everything else from behind the largest of the four houses. I could tell that the peak would cast a shadow over the plateau every morning as the sun rose up behind it, but at the time we arrived on the mountain we were getting an unavoidable bath of golden-hour sunlight right until sundown, which wasn't for quite a while. 

Looking around my new bedroom, I couldn't help but see the small ways that Mamá had personalized it with me in mind. It was cozy and full of natural light. Two bookshelves stood side by side against one wall, and there was room on the nightstand for books as well. After Joaquín dropped the bombshell that there was an entire library in the main house, I knew that my room would soon become my own little paradise. 

After our little debriefing session in my room, the four of us separated quickly to avoid suspicion. Joaquín went into his room, which was on the other side of the house from mine, and Mamá led the way for me and Camry to enter the main house. She said something about cake, I think, but my thoughts were too preoccupied with wondering where the library was to pay real attention. Walking beside me, Camry's brain was working overtime looking at all of her surroundings. 

~*~

There was no doubt that this day was a special occasion unlike any other on the mountain. Unfortunately, there were just enough elements of hurt and betrayal sewn into the evening to taint the mood of the party. The cake was delicious, of course, but the birthday boy it was intended for was exiled to his bedroom. Ariadna did her best to communicate with her new siblings and answer their questions, but it was difficult since none had learned any sign language yet. Camry was still a relative novice in the language, so she wasn't much help to begin with. So much social stimulation from being surrounded by so many people all at once quickly took its toll on both introverted girls, and they soon lost the energy to cope with all the chatter and small talk. 

Then there was the matter of where Camry would sleep during her stay. There weren't any more guest rooms in Laia and Lucas' house, and it was unanimously agreed upon that she wouldn't be a good fit to stay in either the main house, where Caesar and Ramón lived, or Tía Camila's house, where Miguel lived. That left only one natural option: Jazmín's house, with AJ and Olivia. After bonding with both girls in particular during the drive up the mountain, Camry let out a quiet sigh of relief to hear such favorable news. 

To make a long story short, she settled into a spare room fairly easily; she only had one bag of belongings, after all. AJ and Olivia hovered in her doorway for a moment after showing her to the room. "What's up?" Camry asked when it became clear that something was on their minds. 

"Sorry," AJ said quickly. Her thumb pressing over her bottom lip, she let her gaze flit like a hummingbird over the bare surfaces of the room. "It's been a weird day." 

"And I've got  _so_ many questions to ask you," Olivia added eagerly. "Maybe we should have a sleepover! C'mon, AJ, let's have an emergency sleepover tonight." 

One look at the exhaustion beaming out through Camry's eyes was all it took to make AJ shake her head. "Not tonight, Vi. I... I wanna do some readings and think about this for myself first." 

Olivia nodded. "Yeah, okay. Tomorrow night! Camry, do you like sleepovers?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess so," was her uncertain response. 

"Good. Tomorrow night. Just the girls in here." Olivia ran a hand through her choppy brown hair and grinned. "And don't worry. The boys won't try to bug us at all."

"They know better," AJ said in a way that hinted at past wrongdoings. Camry tried to resist the shiver that threatened to run up her spine. What could their brothers have done in the past to warrant something so ominous?

"C-Cool," Cam stammered. "I, uh, I'm looking forward to it." 

Evening came and went far more quickly than expected. Maybe there was something to be said about the weary mind not processing the world correctly. All Camry knew was that after AJ and Olivia had left her to her own devices, she sank down on the edge of the bed and automatically settled her right hand over the cuff on her left arm. Her thumb and forefinger found the release buttons, though she didn't dare follow through with the impulse to push them in. Fragments of memories-- a white floor, a bright light, agony threatening to push outward from inside her skull until she broke-- floated in and out of her mind, and when she looked up again she noticed the waning light of the sunset through her window. 

The sounds of people getting ready to go to bed soon could be heard throughout the house. After a final check-in from Jazmín to make sure everything was in order for her to turn in, Camry got dressed in well-worn shorts and a clean tank top. Her window was cracked open to let the cool mountain air in, and she rolled into place on top of the covers as per her usual routine. Her iolite eyes drifted shut, and as soon as her mind wound itself down a few more notches, sleep found her. 

Sleep wasn't the only thing that found her, though. Before long, she was dreaming about the facility again. Surrounded by people in white coats, she kicked and thrashed against the steel bands that secured her to the operating table. The leering faces of the scientists were cast in shadow even when they leaned into the bright overhead lights. A mask hooked up to what could only be anesthesia hovered over Relle's pleading lips, then was crushed into place and held there as she fought to stay awake. Like a dream within a dream, Relle closed her eyes and was suddenly somewhere entirely new. 

It was dark, and cold, and airless. Only a hazy, greenish-blue light filtered down in broken rays from hundreds of feet above her head. Strands of her own blue hair tickled her cheeks and forehead in a lazy fashion as she looked from side to side. With a jolt and a flinch, the truth dawned on her: she was underwater! No sooner had the realization struck than a world-shattering rumble echoed up from the murky depths below her dangling boots. Vibrations slammed through the water and into her unprepared form, bringing with them a heat so intense that it stunned even Relle herself. She clapped a hand over each ear and screwed her eyes shut, but in true dreamlike fashion she could somehow still see what happened next. 

An enormous mass, wide as a mountain and slowly growing tall enough to match, pushed its way into view. It rose higher and higher through the water with each volley of vibrations until its peak all but blocked out the weak light drifting in from the surface. Its jagged side was barely inches away from Relle, and she hesitated only for a second before reaching out her left hand to feel the black rock for herself. The instant she made contact, a searing shock ran up her arm and whipped her into sitting up in bed. She gasped for air desperately and leaned back on one hand to brace her weary body. The blanket beneath her was tousled from her earlier squirming, and when she turned her head from side to side she found a dull burning sensation throbbing in thin rows up and down the column of her pale throat. 

On top of that, she was  _cold_. Everywhere she touched on her body was chilled below the skin, and she could barely feel her curling toes. Camry shivered as she started to rub her arms for warmth and rose to her feet. Across the room, the window offered her a clear view of the courtyard and half of the moons' arc in the twinkling sky. The bright moons only held her attention for a few seconds, however, as they were replaced by the odd fact that the front porch light of the house directly across the courtyard was on. A bundle and its shadow were sitting underneath the light in silence, hardly moving at all even as Camry continued to watch. 

'That's... That's the house Dude is staying in' she realized slowly. 'Is that him?' 

There was no question about what she wanted to do after that. Without bothering with shoes, she all but locked her arms into place over her chest and hunched over against the breezes buffeting the mountaintop. She made sure to open and close the front door as quietly as possible as she stole out to be beneath the stars. The grass had yet to form its dewdrops, but it was still frigid under her soles. Camry picked her way across the lawn and soon stood at the edge of where the porch light illuminated the ground. 

It was definitely Dude sitting there. He had a blanket wrapped around him, and he hadn't yet changed into pajamas. His brown feet were bare, peeking out under the hem of the quilt. His dark eyes fixated firmly on the sky right up until the moment Camry had stepped onto a cobblestone footpath; after that, he squinted into the darkness and remained apprehensively silent. 

"Hey," Camry whispered first. Hunched over and shivering, she looked about as pitiful as could be.

"Hey," he replied in kind. "You okay?"

"Y-Yeah, just... kinda cold." At that, he spread his arms wide and offered up the seat beside him. Camry didn't hesitate to accept the invitation. "Thanks." Now swaddled in the warm fabric and touching hips, the two teens leaned against each other in relative silence for a few peaceful moments. 

Someone had to break the stillness, though. "Couldn't sleep?" Camry asked in barely more than an exhale. 

"Mm-hmm," he said. "I've got a lot on my mind, I guess. What about you?"  

"It was just a weird dream," she muttered. "I've been getting a lot of those lately."

"Wanna tell me about it?" Joaquín asked, to which she shook her head ever so slightly.

"It's a long story," she said. "I'd rather be done thinking about it." 

Joaquín opened his mouth to speak, then closed it when he thought better. Still, the burning question on his mind refused to go ignored. "Does... Does it have to do with those scratches on your neck?" 

Camry's left hand flew up to her throat and inadvertently exposed the cuff on her forearm. Her fingers were barely a centimeter from making contact with the broken skin, but she didn't close the distance. "How did you know?" she whispered without looking at him. 

"That's also kind of a long story," he said. "What's going on, Cam? You're never cold, for one thing." 

Just the thought of having her best friend back after so long apart was enough to make her momentarily forget about the danger that he was somehow "turned" toward the side of witches. Camry slumped back further and rested her left arm on top of her knees. "I... kinda didn't tell you everything about how I got this thing, Dude."  

She did her best to keep the story brief, but there were so many details to sort through that it was hard not to just spill everything at once. Regret began to form ice in her middle as a horrified expression stole over Joaquín's face. His immediate response was to pull her in closer and lean his chin up so he could tuck her head under. Camry couldn't say she minded the proximity, especially when it was doing such a good job of replacing her lost body heat. 

"Cam, that's... that's so  _horrible_ , I-- I can't believe that actually happened to you," he whispered, and his grip around her pulled tighter by a fraction. 

"But, like, I promise that I had been wanting to come find you before all that other stuff happened," she was quick to add. "I'm not here just 'cause I can't go back home." 

"I didn't think that," Joaquín assured her. "God, and-- and I was just-- I was just  _here_ all this time." 

Camry pulled back a bit to look at his face then. For some reason, it didn't register for either teen that their noses were barely inches apart. "What're you talking about?" 

"Well," he wavered, uncertain, "I guess... I guess I just feel guilty that I wasn't there for you." 

The tiniest of smiles tugged on her lips then, and without a second thought she leaned up just far enough to plant a cool peck on his cheek. "Stop that," she said softly. "You were basically kidnapped, right? It's not your fault." 

Under the light of the porch, which cast just the right shadows to hide the flush of Joaquín's cheeks, Camry shifted her posture a bit and let out a sigh. "I just wish I knew what to do now. You're... You  _are_ coming back with me, right?" 

Her question snapped him out of his reeling thoughts, and he cleared his throat a little too loudly for how quiet their surroundings were. With everyone else asleep, only the sounds of the wind in the trees and the nocturnal bugs' chirping broke up the silence. "Cam, I... I don't know, honestly. It's gotten so complicated since this all started, you know? I don't know what to think anymore." 

He released his embrace somewhere in the middle of his response. By the time he fell quiet, his arms were folded on top of his bent knees and his head drooped forward. Only a corner of the blanket gripped in one fist kept it from slipping off his shoulders. 

On the other hand, Camry wasn't willing to let him shy too far away. She reached out under the blanket and hooked her right hand around his upper arm while laying her head on his shoulder. "I mean... I think I do. I just can't wrap my head around it. He  _kidnapped_ you, Dude." 

"Joaquín," he reminded her softly, and she blanched at her misstep. "It's okay. My dad's not a bad guy, Cam. I don't think there're any self help books in the library for the best way to get back your missing kids, though. There've been a lot of misunderstandings for everyone." 

Camry hummed a low, unsure note. "I still don't trust him." 

"Just give it some time," Joaquín sighed. "Are, uh, are you gonna be okay wearing that thing on your arm all the time? It looks... heavy." The word he had wanted to use was a lot more like 'ominous' or 'intimidating,' but some intuitive voice in his mind warned him against it. 

At that, she let go of his arm and settled her hand over the cuff. Even after wearing it for several hours, it felt far too cold against her skin, like it refused to adapt to her body heat. "I think so. I  _hope_ so." 

Their conversation petered out after that, and silence flowed in like a second, comfortable blanket to wrap around them. Finally warm again, Camry inclined her head to look at the same stars that Joaquín had been gazing at. Soon, though, her eyelids were beginning to feel heavy. His arm went back around her shoulders after a moment's hesitation. Several minutes passed before either spoke again. 

"You know? It's so quiet here compared to back home," Cam noted in a sluggish, sleepy tone. She immediately yawned and didn't bother to cover her mouth. 

"Yeah," Joaquín murmured. "You don't see the stars this clearly in the city, either." 

She hummed in agreement and slumped further against him, drooping under the weight of her exhaustion and tranquility. A gentle nudge on her arm did little to make her sit up. "Hey," Joaquín laughed quietly, "I may have four arms sometimes, but I wasn't planning on carrying you to bed. Don't fall asleep out here." 

"Sorry," she mumbled while sucking in a sharp breath, which was soon followed by another yawn. Her back audibly popped when she straightened her spine. "Wow, I need to go to sleep. You're gonna go sleep soon, too, right?" 

"Soon, yeah." He was about to retract the blanket from around her shoulders, but then thought better of it and settled for leaving it on her instead. "I think my thoughts're quiet enough for me to try." 

It was then that Camry noticed that she was the only one holding the blanket, and when she tried to give it back he motioned with one hand for her to keep it. Bundling herself in tighter, she rose to go, but not before using her elbow to prod his arm gently. She got a nudge in return and smiled. "Okay. Sleep well, Joaquín. See you tomorrow-today." 

She wasn't technically wrong. Just how long had they been sitting there on the porch? Joaquín watched her disappear into the darkness; after a faint sound of the front door opening and closing, he knew she was back inside. He stood and slipped back to his own room, where he fell face-down onto his mattress with a dull thud. When he had said his thoughts were quiet, he hadn't exactly been lying. 

What he had left out was how new thoughts were there to replace the old ones, and they were just as loud. 

~*~

Power in the Dowell house had returned only a couple of hours after the quake finished. With the lights flickering on came a flood of relief felt all across town. As the Mahadeos were settling in within the Dowell home, Saoirse stayed glued to her phone screen. She dutifully scoured the internet for any official reports, though the majority of what she found was either old news or crackpot theories from less-than-credible forums. 

Pretty soon after power had returned, Saoirse's notifications were blowing up with concerned followers linking her to the same live news feed. It was local to Bailey Lake, and when she tuned into it she was shocked to see a crew of reporters standing on what could only be the shore of Bailey Lake itself. A tall chain-link fence with barbed wire strung across the top was erected around the lapping water's edge, but that didn't stop anyone from looking through it. 

"-- can't quite be sure now that the fog-- or steam-- or whatever it is-- is rising higher, but we're sure of what we saw," the main reporter said into his microphone. He kept making sudden glances over his shoulder to scan across the lake's surface, which was shrouded in a blanket of thick fog. Under such a bright and sunny sky, the contrast was unnaturally bleak and cold-looking. "Yes, ladies and gentlemen, there is a mass of  _something_ rising out of the lake, and it's getting bigger. We can't know for sure what it is, but something tells me it has to do with the earthquakes." 

"They're getting stronger by the day," a second man agreed, and the camera swiveled a few feet to the left to get him into the frame. By their matching windbreakers, the two reporters were from the same station. "The readings are all coming up the same: earthquake magnitude is increasing at a steady rate. If nothing changes, we can expect one of roughly 6.2 on the Richter scale three to four weeks from now."

"Let's hope the research crews will be able to get a good look at whatever's in the lake, huh?" 

Both of Saoirse's brothers had crawled under her arms to get a look at her phone during the broadcast. When that little truth bomb dropped, both twins quickly looked up to gauge their sister's reaction. "Is that bad?" Liam whispered. 

"Y--" she started to say, but quick thinking stopped her tongue. "--YYYou know what? It's gonna be okay. If things stay bad with all the earthquakes, we'll just go stay with Uncle Keegan and Auntie Siobhan for a while... or something."  

Aidan wrinkled his nose at the idea and wriggled his head out of the crook of Saoirse's elbow. As someone who was perpetually inclined toward using his outdoor voice, it was impossible to feel comfortable around his aunt and uncle when they were constantly warning him to keep his voice down. "I don't wanna do that." 

Just around a handful of corners, Sadie and Eleanor sat at the bar-like counter of the recently renovated kitchen and sipped their steaming mugs of tea. In stressful times such as these, even just a little bit of relaxation was becoming harder and harder to achieve. Sadie's watermelon tourmaline eyes were cast down to her reflection in the rippling surface of her dark tea. "I'm so worried about them both." 

"I know you are," Eleanor answered before taking a sip of her own tea. Pleasantly hot going down her throat, it let a warm feeling spread through her middle. "They seem like they're doing alright, though. We know they've found Dude by now, so they should be coming home soon." 

"Sure, but I tried to call her about an hour before that last earthquake and didn't even get her voicemail." After a depressive sigh, she raised her mug to her lips and spoke into it. "I hate not knowing what's going on anymore." 

There wasn't much she could say to that. Eleanor was in the same boat as Sadie, albeit to a different extent. Life had certainly changed very quickly and in the most unexpected of ways. With the frequent ghost attacks, or "disturbances" as the police department insisted, and these worrying earthquakes coming and going as they pleased, city-wide fear and paranoia were on the rise. Talks of preemptive evacuations were all over the major news sites, and some of the top-searched questions involved earthquake safety, tips for fleeing war zones, and questions about Relle Phantom's disappearance. 

"Well, maybe we should try to just focus on what we  _can_ control for now," Eleanor began slowly, taking several sips of her tea before speaking again. "I suppose it's not a bad idea to decide where everyone will be sleeping." 

"I figured Saoirse could take Camry's room for now," Sadie said. "You and Harris are welcome to the guest room..." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know things seem pretty boring or mundane right now, but I'm hoping to jump right into the interesting stuff starting in the next chapter :D we gotta establish ground rules in-universe and all that first, right? 
> 
> And speaking of establishing stuff, here's that family chart I promised a while back: 
> 
> Children of Elena (Ricardo's legal wife): Caesar and Ramón (17), Thomas (11), Trinidad (10)  
> Marina: Joaquín and Ariadna (~17)   
> Jazmín: AJ and Olivia (16)   
> Camila: Terese and Miguel (16), Antonio (5)   
> Juana (absent): Laia and Lucas (15)
> 
> Please leave a kudos and comment down below because they do wonders for my writing motivation!! I'm always eager to know your thoughts on the story. Thanks!!


	32. Warmth

When Ariadna opened her eyes and sat up in bed, she took more than a few extra seconds to process the sight of her new room. For a moment, she wondered if she had just forgotten what the Dowells' guest room looked like and dreamed up the entire trip through Mexico. The feeling of her toned leg muscles and sore soles flexing against the floor when she stood confirmed that none of that had been a dream. She stretched, popped her back with both hands in the air, and walked out into the hall to see who was already awake. As she made her way through the maze of hallways in this unfamiliar house, she passed a door that was ajar just enough to give her a clear view of the interior. There was a twin-sized bed with no blankets on it, and her twin brother was asleep with his face buried in the pillows. 

'Uh... weird' Ari thought to herself, and was about to continue on her way when Joaquín began to stir. She pushed the door open a little further and rapped her knuckles on the wood above the knob. "Morning, bro." 

Joaquín threw a brief wave to her over his shoulder before rolling onto his back and sitting up. She signed a quick question once his eyes were all the way open. "Where is your blanket?" 

"Gave it to Camry, cold last night" he signed back, spelling out the girl's name in lieu of using her signing name. As clever and fun as it was to substitute in the letter "C" while making the motions for "ghost," it wasn't a good idea to so blatantly say what she was once more of their siblings became familiar with the tactile language. 

"That's the blanket from your bed," Ari pointed out in quick, punctuated motions. "Not an extra one. Why?" 

"It's fine," he assured her. Joaquín still wore his clothes from the day before and looked rather disheveled as a result. He yawned and reached forward until something in his shoulder popped and released the knot there. 'Ugh, so much better.' 

On his way out the door, he had to brush past his sister, who got a much clearer view of the bags under his eyes. "Wait, when did you go to sleep?" she asked out loud as she turned to follow him down the hall. All she got for an answer was a dismissive wave of his hand. Then they were in the kitchen, where their mother was preparing something that smelled delicious for breakfast. Lucas was seated at the table with a clear view into the kitchen so he could talk to his tía, but Laia was nowhere to be found. 

Right around that same time, someone else was stirring from a deep slumber. The pile of thick blankets shifted lazily, and a pale hand reached out from underneath only to flinch at the temperature of the air and dart back in. Camry groaned and rubbed the crust off her eyes. 'Mmm... so toasty... gonna... sleep... s'more...' Or so she thought. 

The loud complaint of a cat suddenly sounded right next to her hip, and she sat up in a flash. Static had her short hair floating in a blonde cloud around her head. She swiped urgently at the strands that were threatening to blind her as she stared at the tabby cat loafing flush against her thigh from on top of the covers.  "Whu--?" Cam mumbled. Where did this cat come from, and why was it sleeping on her bed? 

"Uh... Hi there, sweetie," she said awkwardly while extending an index finger for the cat to sniff. It had a vaguely M-shaped marking on its forehead and a white chin. The depth to its eyes was immense and seemed to reflect more than one color in the large irises. The cat sniffed her finger, then yawned and stretched into a sitting position. 

Then it opened its mouth and asked, "Are you gonna get up anytime soon or what?" 

Camry launched backwards with an unbridled shriek only to cut herself off when her shoulder blades collided with the wall. "Ow!" To her shock, the cat snickered at her and stepped forward to rub its head against her sternum. 

"Sorry, that was mean," it apologized around the mirth in its tone. "But, I mean, I had to. That was  _too_ funny." 

" _What the fuck_ ," Camry whispered. 

"Aww, don't you recognize me? It's AJ!" 

"What?" She sat up straight with the cat in her lap and picked it up behind its front legs. "AJ? Did-- Did a spell do this to you? Are you trapped in a cat's body?" 

Camry didn't even know cats could roll their eyes, but this one did before batting at her arm to be let go. "No, I'm not trapped in a cat's body. This is my familiar, Tarot. I'm using her to speak to you from the other room." 

"Oh." The monosyllable left her mouth quietly and with a note of embarrassment. "I, uh, I guess that makes more sense." 

With a playful swat goodbye to Camry's nose, Tarot leaped to the floor and slipped out through the doorway, which must have been left open after Camry returned from her talk with Joaquín the night before. AJ called out through her familiar just before disappearing. "Just so you know, the kitchen isn't always open. Move it or lose it."

Despite the advice, she didn't get up right away. Her head was still reeling from the shock, and when she tried to shake out some of the stiffness in her joints it caused the dull throb in her back to flare up in warning. "Ugh... I really threw myself hard." Finally, she knew it was high time she got up to face the day, and she did so while wrapping one of the blankets around her shoulders like a cape. 

Honestly, this omnipresent chill in her bones should have been expected. After so many months of always being warm at the bare minimum, though, Camry couldn't say she was too pleased about this side effect of the chilly cuff. There should be absolutely no reason for someone to have to rub feeling back into their fingers while staying in Mexico at the height of summer. 

'What if I took it off at night?' she wondered, but then shook her head. 'No way. Too risky. And if I'm asleep, I'd be defenseless when they'd discover me.' 

When she swept down the hallway to find the dining room, Camry also couldn't help but notice how light her steps were. Usually, her dense core made it all but impossible to walk quietly, but with that disconnected she could all but ghost her way around the house silently. In the back of her mind, she wondered what other side effects she would experience thanks to the cuff. 

Breakfast was rather uneventful besides the chatter around the table, which was almost cleared of food by the time Camry arrived. Jazmín was an interesting host, to say the least. Her mannerisms as she flitted about the house carried an eccentric personality and energy, and she seemed to have a million questions she could only just barely hold in. It was a good thing Camry wasn't feeling all that hungry, because her mouth was a bit more occupied with answering Jazmín's questions about her hometown than actually eating. 

Finally, Camry saw an opportunity to ask a question of her own. "So, what does everybody do up here on the mountain all day?" 

"Oh, the kids are usually pretty busy learning magic: practicing spells with their father, working on their own pet projects, studying a language when they're ready for another one," Jazmín said while ticking off the items on her pinky, ring, and middle fingers. "There is always something to do. The girls and I are usually pretty busy running the daily operations." 

 "You mean, you and the other tías?" 

"Sí." She rested her elbows on the kitchen counter where she could look over at her newest ward. "I heard there was a little bit of drama with the cat this morning." 

In the middle of drinking from a glass of milk, Camry sputtered and nearly choked. " _Ack_ \--!" Her face flushed with warmth, and at the same time her stomach plummeted when she realized that the heat was nowhere near its usual intensity. "O-Oh, did AJ, um, say something?" 

"No, but the yell and the thud were enough," Jazmín said with a playful grin. "If there's one thing my girls inherited from me, it's that they love to mess with other people."

She straightened her back and picked up a washcloth out of the sink. While her back was turned to the adjacent dining room, she began to wipe down the marble-topped counters. "I do want to let you know that I understand if all this is a bit, well-- agh, ¿que es en inglés?" Jazmín tugged on her earlobe for a split second and seemed to give up on finding the right word with a dramatic roll of her eyes. "Well, it's a lot. Trust me, I have been there before. Some days, I still am. But while you are staying under my roof, you can come talk to me about anything you do not understand, okay?" 

"O-Oh, I... Thank you, so much," Camry stuttered. 

"Just try not to hold it against anyone if they go a little, uh, overboard with everything," she continued. "The kids don't have a lot of contact with regular humans besides us, and I don't think they quite understand what counts as a lot and what does not. Magic is a very normal thing to them." 

Always a lover of accents, Camry had a smile on her face as she took in Jazmín's advice. "M'kay, I'll do my best. I've known D-- Joaquín for a while now, so I'd like to think I can expect the unexpected." 

"That boy," Jazmín chuckled. "Your adventures together must have been crazy. I want to hear how you two met sometime soon. But for now, go outside and find something to do." 

Officially shooed out of the house, Camry quickly got dressed and donned her worn-out tennis shoes to do as she was told. Once outside, she felt an insistent prickle zip across her chilly skin, and then she stretched wide to greet the brightness of the day. With or without her core, she had to admit that she felt wonderful just standing where the sunlight could reach her. Being able to enjoy the sunshine beyond the context of struggling to fight the urge to not abandon her heavy backpack on the side of the road was like entering an entirely different world. 

Without the burden of her pack or her mission, she had to admit to feeling a little at a loss for ideas. 'What am I supposed to do all day now?' Cam wondered as her legs started walking of their own accord. 'I guess I've been searching for so long that-- well, I forgot what else there is to do.' 

Finding cell service and getting back in touch with her family and friends were high on her priorities list, of course. God only knew how worried Saoirse and her parents were after her radio silence effective yesterday afternoon. She stopped on the walkway and spun in a slow circle. Now that she could see the compound in full daylight... it was  _big._ On top of that, with a small part of the rising sun still blocked by the mountain's peak, a deep spike-shaped shadow fell over the center of the grounds and the eastern house. It only took her a few quick paces to reach the edge of the shade, and with an absentminded hand she reached out to put her hand in. 

The shock of cold that ran all the way up her arm and to her brain made her gasp and jerk back. 

'How am I going to get us all out of here?' Camry turned an about-face and marched away from the shadow to recuperate under the sun's rays. Goosebumps flared up and down her arm with the crawling retreat of the chill burrowed under her skin, but it was a marked improvement. 'Dude won't listen to me, and I doubt Maria would agree to escape with me and Ari if he wasn't on board with the plan, either.' 

She pivoted to take another look at the area, which was calm and peaceful with the blooming day. Most of the families were still indoors, as it would seem, though that would surely change soon enough. 'I guess... I'll have to think of something as I go' Camry thought in reluctant resignation. This place was undoubtedly idyllic, but she couldn't help feeling apprehension creeping up her back as she continued down the walkway around the fountain. 

Witches were all around her, and there was so little she could do about it. 

'M-Maybe this was a bad idea.' 

A door opened and closed noisily from a far distance behind her, startling her out of her anxious reverie. Someone was stepping down from the porch of the southern house. His hands were in his pockets, and when he passed the edge of the roof's cover he hesitated to walk any further. Camry's deep iolite gaze grew cold as it met a fiery pair of pinfire opal eyes trained directly on her. 

What was she supposed to do in a situation like this? Her conscience was suggesting she go over and try to apologize for yesterday, but a much more stubborn part of her was digging its heels in just as firmly. 'He looks mad' she fretted. ' _Really_ mad.' 

Before she could find the words to say anything, to call out to Miguel or start walking toward him, he continued on his way to the right-- Camry's left-- and ignored her completely. His hands didn't even leave his pockets. With a fist clenched tight and pressed against her sternum, she watched him until he was completely out of view; all the while, a confused indignation grew thicker and thicker in her gut. 

'Great. So much for getting an apology out of me' she decided right then and there. Continuing on her walk, she kept looking around for something to do. Was everyone else still indoors? Why was the mountain so quiet? 'I wonder what Dude is up to-- Joaquín! I wonder what  _Joaquín_ is up to. Yes. I know the words.' 

Right at that moment, the front door to the main house swung open and a multicolored dog barreled off the porch at mach 3, followed closely by Thomas. As if that was the coven's cue, it seemed like everyone was suddenly coming outside all at once! Laia and Lucas were yelling something at each other as they descended the porch steps of their own house, but Camry couldn't tell what they were arguing about because they were both speaking in Spanish. Terese latched onto Laia, and both girls rushed to disappear behind one of the sheds that had yet to be explained. AJ and Olivia appeared together and split apart just like that, heading in opposite directions. With few other options left, Camry started toward AJ and drew even with her walking speed. 

"Hey, uh, what do we, y'know, do all day?" she asked ever so gracefully. 

AJ raised an eyebrow at her. "Well, there's magic practice, and when we're bored of that we take breaks to blow off steam. I guess you can tag along with me if you want; I'm going to visit my garden for a couple spell ingredients." 

"Oh, fun!" Camry said. "Thanks, by the way. I'm-- I'm kinda out of my element here." 

" _No_ ," AJ gasped sarcastically. "Really? I definitely couldn't tell at  _all_." Once again, Camry's cheeks flushed pink, though she could safely say it was a very human temperature and shade. AJ giggled at the sight and gently punched her new friend in the right shoulder. "Don't worry about it, chica. You're not the only one." 

"What do you mean?" 

"It's not like we get a lot of human visitors on the mountain," AJ said. "But after tonight, I'm sure that'll go away. Our sleepovers are always fun." 

"Right, I almost forgot about that. I'm looking forward to it." Something soft brushed past her ankle and meowed loudly, startling her into nearly tripping over thin air. When Camry looked down at the offender, Tarot was already tiptoeing past on whisper-quiet feet and swishing her sleek tail back and forth. Beside her, AJ could barely hold back the sputter of laughter that sprang to life in her belly. 

"... Uh huh," Camry said, her tone as flat as a board. 

"Aww, you know I couldn't pass up an opportunity like that!" was AJ's excuse. "It's completely normal around here for animal familiars to talk for us, so it has no effect on anyone anymore." 

As they continued on their merry way, poking fun at each other and chatting amicably, little did either teen know that three distinct pairs of eyes were trained on them. Around the side of a short but wide drying shed for preserving plants, Miguel pointed out his target to his two older brothers. "Of course, AJ takes her side over ours," he grumbled under his breath. "How can she be so friendly to someone so  _crazy?_ " 

"Crazy or not, what I don't understand is why you dragged me out of my room to spy on her," Caesar said, his arms folded over his chest as he stepped further behind the shed. "Don't you have better things to do?"

"I think I'm with Caesar on this one," Ramón chimed in while also pulling back from the corner of the wall. 

"Guys, c'mon." Miguel stood up straight and faced them, resolute. "Don't you want to get revenge for how she beat us up yesterday?" 

"I guess..." Ramón muttered. Caesar said nothing but raised a mildly curious brow. 

Hands out to his sides in an inviting gesture, Miguel continued with, "We can get her back while she's on the mountain, and anything we do won't matter as long as nobody figures out it was us!" 

"Ohh, that's right!" Ramón's grin suddenly widened. "There's no way Papá won't erase her memory before she leaves." 

"It's the perfect revenge: no consequences!"

Caesar, however, wasn't about to jump on the bandwagon so soon. "Don't you two think that's too much? I know I don't like her any more than you do, but still. What are you going to say if you get caught?"

"Oh, it's not if we get caught," Miguel used his thumb to motion quickly between himself and Ramón, "but if we all get caught. You're  _really_ good at curses, so you gotta help us!"

Ramón clasped his hands together and pouted like a dejected dog. "Please, Caesar? You can finally practice on someone that won't screw with your results." 

Up until then, Caesar was firm in his resolve to stay on the sidelines of this scheme, but his twin's point was the straw that broke the metaphoric camel's back. He caved with a heavy sigh almost immediately. There were limits to what he could do with his magic when all of his siblings were magical themselves and therefore produced weird, unexpected results when subjected to spells of his own creation. On top of that, the only normal humans on the mountain were his mother and tías, and he  _definitely_ wasn't anywhere near stupid enough to try anything on them. 

"Fine!" he grumbled. "Fine, alright, I'm in. But you two have to promise me you won't do anything dangerous. I'm not bailing you out if we get caught." 

Miguel pumped his fist in celebration, beaming from ear to ear. "Oh, this is gonna be  _fun_." 

~*~

While Joaquín was shut up in the library and Ari sat through the most basic of magical lessons with her father, every other magical student busied themselves with all kinds of distractions. Camry, as she bounced from person to person in her quest for something to do, got to see it all. Once sitting with AJ while she brewed an experimental potion became dull, she found Olivia disassembling a boxy computer tower inside what looked to be her personal workshop. Machine parts and tools were scattered in every direction, and sitting amongst it all were the remains of her half-finished projects. "Why're you taking it apart?" Camry asked after watching for a quiet moment.

"My magic is in constructing and deconstructing what I see around me," Olivia explained without taking even the slightest of pauses. "It helps me understand things better when I can see how all the little parts fit together."

"Oh," Camry said, sinking down into a crouch next to the workbench. As she continued to watch Olivia's hands move with an agility and deftness she assumed could only be instinctive, her brow knit further and further together. Finally, she blurted out, "Wait, how is that magic?" without a whole lot of thought about how that might come across. 

Over her shoulder, Olivia shot Camry an "Are you serious?" type of look and pointed her index finger at a pile of gears and wires that lay only a few feet away from where Camry crouched. Before her very eyes, the pieces became animated and swiftly came together in a blur of motion and metallic clinks. After a handful of seconds, the parts were replaced by a black stereo. After a snap of Olivia's fingers, its 'on' indicator blinked with a steady white light. 

"That's how it's magic." 

Needless to say, Camry's entire expression was one of pure wonder. "Holy--! You can do that with  _anything?_ "

"Anything I've studied," she said. "Or can reasonably guess about. Not everything is as complex as a stereo." She snapped her fingers again, and the device collapsed back into its components like nothing had happened. 

"That. Is. Amazing." Back to her full height, Camry bent over to hug Olivia around the shoulders. "And sorry, I didn't mean to sound rude when I asked you that. Can I watch you work for a while?"

Olivia patted her arm, and Camry let go of the embrace to plop her rear down on what free space there was on the bench. "If you don't make a lot of noise." 

"Can I ask some questions, though?"

"... A couple." 

~*~

With most of her time spent cultivating an awe for the magic that surrounded her, it was little wonder how the day came to a close so quickly. Camry flitted like a carefree bird around the complex and asked every question she could think of when it came to how each witch's magic operated. The biggest chunk of her afternoon was well spent, in her opinion, with Trinidad and Terese, whose Storm and Refraction talents came in handy when looking for ways to entertain themselves. Even if their newest game consisted of trying to land the coolest hits with baseball-sized hail stones against the side of a storage shed, all three girls were easily amused. 

"Hey, so, I've been wondering about something," Cam said as she wound her arm back for her next throw. Her fingers were starting to go numb from the countless chunks of ice she had held throughout the afternoon, but a small part of her was amazed at how little each had melted. She let the stone fly, and all three girls held their collective breath as it bounced and rolled around on the slanted roof. It tumbled off after a few seconds, prompting a disappointed sigh from the players. 

"What?" Trinidad said. 

"Can you, like, summon whatever kind of storm you want just whenever? Or does it depend on what the conditions are already like in the atmosphere? And can you shoot lightning bolts?" 

Terese did little to hide her giggle behind the hand holding her own hail stone. "That sounds like a couple somethings." 

Trinidad tossed her ball of ice back and forth between her hands a few times as she thought over her response. "Well, it's not really like that. I can sense when storms are coming  _way_ sooner than most things can, and I can sometimes change what kind of storm they turn out to be." 

"Lightning hasn't hit the mountain in years," Terese supplied eagerly. "And we never have to worry about getting too much rain to ruin our gardens." 

"And I don't think I'll be able to try lightning control for a while. That's advanced magic." Trinidad chucked another hail stone at the roof, which pulled an indignant whine out of her sister for skipping her turn. "Oh, c'mon, lighten up. Besides," She turned back to Cam to finish her thought, "I'm only ten. I'm still figuring out how my specialization works with my conduit." She tapped the side of her nose indicatively before tossing a new hail stone to the blonde. She caught it against her chest and chuckled quietly at how it had surprised her.

"Fair enough. How old are witches usually when they get their powers?" 

"Five or six," Terese said. 

"Unless you're Terese and don't get it until you're eight," Trinidad jabbed and earned herself a glare from her older sister. 

"Oh, like you were even  _aware_ of anything when I was eight!" 

"Papá says 'Tonio's gonna get his magic any day now," Trinidad continued as if Terese hadn't said anything at all. True to form, their sisterly bickering was frequent and mostly inconsequential. "AJ set up a betting pool for what his specialization will be." 

Camry giggled and hurled her hail stone with enough force to break it into fragments against the sturdy wall of the shed. "That sounds like a fun thing to bet on."

"Not when you're betting against AJ!" 

"Her specialization is with probability, so she's stupid lucky all the time," Terese explained when Camry looked confused. "She probably looked at her tarot cards before she made her guess at his talent, too." 

"Oof, good luck to you guys, then," Camry said. 

"Speaking of tarot readings, I'll bet we can get AJ to give you one at the sleepover tonight." 

Camry's left hand flew up to try and deflect the idea. "Oh, uh, I dunno if I would want to bother her with something like that."

"Nah, it'll be fun!" Trinidad insisted. "You can't tell me you aren't even a little bit curious to have a real witch read your fortune." 

"Well..." She wavered, then sighed and released the built tension in her shoulders. "Yeah, I guess that would be too cool to pass up. But only if she wants to." 

Their game resumed then. At her side, the silver cuff pulled her left arm down toward the ground like a weighted bracelet. By the time everyone's fingers were good and numb, on the verge of turning blue in Camry's case, it was time for dinner, and they rushed off to the main house in a gaggle. After all, the other siblings would hog all the best stuff if they didn't get to it first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright I know I promised you more action soon, but it turns out the story wasn't quite ready for that. But don't worry! I have a fairly decent plan for how the next chapter will go, and there will be a good slice of drama for your troubles. 
> 
> Thank you so much for putting up with my inconsistent updates, and I hope you'll continue to support my stories with your kudos and comments. See you in the next chapter! And happy 2019!


	33. You'll Pick Dare

All the dishes were arranged in a buffet style to make room for everyone to sit at the dinner table. Flanked by Terese and Trinidad, Camry slipped into the line and waited patiently to grab a plate from the dwindling stack. She spotted Ariadna halfway down the table, her plate already looking full, and waved to her with a bright smile. Ari caught sight of the movement out of the corner of her eye and waved back, though with the serving spoon in her hand she tossed around a few clinging chunks of rice. A hand over her mouth to stifle her giggle, Cam winced at the spillage and glanced up at the ceiling. 

'I hope she had a good time learning magic from her dad today' she thought while still pretending not to have seen her friend's mess. The dining room was full of chatter in a wide array of languages, the most prominent being Spanish, of course. Since the three girls were a bit late to the party, space at the table was going to be hard to find. As if to make their point clear, when Miguel and Ramón both looked up and realized in unison that their unexpected guest was scanning the room for a place to sit, they yanked the closest person down into the open chair between themselves. 

That person just so happened to be Joaquín in the process of walking away with a plate to take into his room. 

"Uh, guys? I'm supposed to be in solitary?" he said, glancing rapidly between his brothers. 

"Just sit down and don't worry about it," Ramón hissed under his breath. 

Having seen it all but not knowing what either boy had said, Camry beamed at the sight of her best friend. Now that they were finally in the same room again, she was painfully reminded of how her heart had tightened in the quieter lulls throughout her day. Even as she chucked ice stones at the shed and cheered when they broke in rather impressive explosions, her eyes had been drawn to the main house and what she hoped was a window into the library. 

She had had nearly two years to get to know Joaquín, and, minus her several-month hiatus from life, she could already predict how this forced isolation was affecting him emotionally. Ricardo could not have picked a better punishment for the overly energetic extrovert. 'I wonder if there's something I can do to help him out...' 

The food all looked delicious and flavorful, and Camry found it hard to decide what to forgo in order to not overfill her plate. She hadn't eaten much at breakfast or lunch, a decision that was coming back to bite her through pangs of hunger in her deserted stomach. "Oh man, yum," she said while picking up one of the last plates of the stack. When she lifted her plate into the air, she nearly missed seeing how the one below it started to rattle like there was a tiny earthquake beneath it. Across the room, Caesar made a disgusted sound deep in his throat and withdrew his pointed index finger hiding under the table. His twin patted his shoulder twice and pretended not to have seen how the curse had missed its mark. 

'It was supposed to break in her hands! I need more practice' Caesar thought as he shoved a forkful of beans and rice into his mouth and chewed harder than necessary. 

Eventually the last person made it through the line and was seated at the long table. Camry found herself in a tight squeeze between Lucas and Laia since the table was already past its intended capacity, but she couldn't say she minded. After all, this was one of those rare instances when her lack in the height department came in handy. "You're Lucas, right? What did you do all day?" 

"I drew up some new sigils," he replied around a cheek full of food. "I dunno if any of them work yet, though." 

"Oh, that's so cool! Could you show me sometime?" 

"Yeah, I guess so. If you want." 

Lucas didn't seem all that interested in continuing their conversation from that point, so she reeled back into herself and chewed quietly to herself. Her gaze swept over the table to take in what everyone else was doing. Ari seemed to be in a sticky situation with Trinidad and Thomas talking to her without sign language; with full mouths and too much noise at the table for her to try listening to the present, Ari was stuck nodding along to whatever they were saying. Camry frowned and wished she could help, but the two tweens were speaking solely in Spanish and she couldn't help her there at all.

"So, Camry," an older voice said from near the head of the table, and Cam turned to look. The speaker was Elena, Ricardo's legal wife and the first tía to the coven. "How long have you been friends with Joaquín and Ariadna?" 

'Could she see how quiet I was being?' Cam wondered before swallowing her food and answering. "Oh, man, I guess a year and a half? Ish? We go to the same high school, but I didn't meet Ari until way later 'cause she goes to a different one across town." 

There was something of a system to how the seating arrangement worked at the Narváez dinner table. Ricardo and the tías clustered together around the head while the kids were free to sit wherever they liked in the remaining space. Elena, unsurprisingly, occupied the seat to her husband's left, so when Camry spoke to her she was more or less speaking to Ricardo as well. That's why it wasn't too much of a surprise when he slid himself into their conversation with ease. "And how did you and Joaquín meet in the first place?" 

Joaquín was instantly on high alert the second he heard any of the grownups talking to Camry. Despite just how mundane this situation actually was, the poor boy's mind was working impossibly fast to churn out all kinds of imagined worst-case scenarios for why they were talking to his best friend. If he'd thought trying to keep Camry's identity a secret from her parents was nerve-wracking, then this was like defusing a bomb without any training. Which wire, which wire? 

"We had chemistry!" he blurted out from further down the table. Nearly every pair of eyes fell on him in the following second, including his father's. 

"Joaquín, you're supposed--" Ricardo started to say, but he tapered into silence when Elena touched his arm and sent him a discreet look. He let out a breath and relaxed his shoulders. 

To her horror, Camry's face flushed red when she realized the double entendre of what Joaquín had said. She spoke up with a stuttering, "W-Well, I-I actually  _tutored_ him in chemistry." 

"Right, that's what I was trying to say," he agreed just as quickly. Thomas grinned knowingly behind his napkin, his pale opal eyes flicking back and forth between the two like he was watching a tennis match. "We met when I went to the library after school to get tutored. For chemistry."

To both teens' relief, most of the other conversations around the table resumed after that. Joaquín and Camry locked eyes for a moment and seemed to silently ask each other different questions, though neither could answer the other before Elena spoke again. "So you tutor other students, Camry? Is it just chemistry, or are you smart in other subjects as well?" 

"I volunteered to be a tutor for service hours, but I do alright in most of my other classes," she answered. "I don't do it anymore, though. There's never any time to sit in the library and wait for people who never show up." 'And it's not like I'm on top of the lessons anymore, either... I  _barely_ passed this year's chem class.' 

It was a wonder anyone could hear the person sitting next to them, much less have conversations across the table, considering how loud the room soon became. Camry only just barely heard Ricardo lament how his brother had to leave the mountain the day before Ari's arrival in order to attend to some coven-related business. Just two people away, Marina found herself talking to Camila, Jazmín, and Elena about the public school system in America and why she had sent Ariadna to a different one than Joaquín. Even so close by, Camry could barely hear their Spanish. That's why it was little wonder how she didn't manage to hear Caesar and Ramón talking quietly in each other's ears. 

"You think I should?" Ramón asked, and Caesar smirked wickedly in response. "Okay, but stop me if Papá looks this way." 

"Don't worry, I've got you covered." 

Timing was crucial to this mission. Surrounded by so many potential witnesses, this was a risky trick to play, but the opportunity was just too good to pass up. Ramón continued to eat as usual and chatted with his neighbors, all the while stealing glances across the way. All she had to do was reach for her water glass... C'mon, c'mon, just drink some water already...!

There! She was reaching for it! Ramón slid his left hand behind his back and put his thumb, index, and middle fingers together. He made the slightest of pulling motions into his palm, and when Camry lifted her cup to her lips, the water stayed motionless in the bottom of the glass. She frowned and furrowed her eyebrows when she realized she wasn't drinking anything, then pulled away to look into the cup. Her confusion was plainly written all across her face, and when he saw, Caesar had to stifle his laughter by quickly turning it into a cough. 

The moment of truth was only milliseconds away. Ramón tried not to grin too wide in anticipation for what was bound to come next. Camry tipped the cup a little too far forward, like she was going to try shaking the stubborn water out, and he flicked his three tensed fingers outward to send the cup's contents all over her face and chest. She gasped and reeled backwards, nearly tipping her chair over with the momentum. The cup clattered onto her lap after bouncing noisily off the edge of the table, where the last drops sprinkled on Laia to her left. A ripple of scattered laughter broke out across the table. "Augh!"

"Whoa!" Lucas exclaimed when he saw the carnage. "Drinking problem?" 

If looks could kill, he would have been incredibly lucky that Camry's eyes were behind her hands as she tried to wipe away the cold water. "Rrrgh!  _No!_ " 

"Did you bump her arm?" Laia demanded of her twin brother, who shrilly denied the accusation and started to throw one of his own right back. A sharp command from their father killed the squabble before it could really start. 

"I'll be right back," Camry muttered as she jumped up and rushed out of the room to dry herself off. The kitchen was the next room over, where she found a gently used dish towel hanging from the handle of one of the ovens. 

The mortification from embarrassing herself so thoroughly paled in comparison to the rush of fear that gripped her when she reached for the towel and tried to grab it. Every part of her trembled like a dead leaf being buffeted by a wintry wind, and her fingers refused to obey her commands in locking onto the cloth. She pawed at its folds until it fell onto the floor and she managed to scoop it into her hands. 

"No, no," she whispered, and to her horror a puff of white fog wafted out of her open mouth. How was she so cold after just being splashed with a bit of water? Her movements stiff and wooden, she worked as fast as she could to blot the water away. At the very least, she could  _try_ to regain some of her lost body heat. 'This isn't right! I shouldn't be this cold!'

Suddenly she turned to face whoever had just walked into the kitchen after her, but to her surprise she saw Marina standing by the counter and wearing a mask of concern. "Mija, are you alright? I didn't see what happened, but you hurried out so fast."

"I-It's n-n-nothing," she tried and failed to lie. Her shivering could have rivaled the most anxious of chihuahuas, and it showed. 

Not the least bit a stranger to what Camry's powers were like, the worry in Marina's amethyst eyes immediately deepened. Her voice lowered to a conspiratorial hush as she walked closer and picked up another towel from the oven's handle. "It doesn't look like nothing to me. Your fingernails are  _blue_."

With her help, they made quick work of patting away the bulk of the cold water. Her damp shirt was unfortunately white, excepting the logo on the front, which presented yet another problem. Marina scanned the kitchen for a solution and, upon sighting a mostly clean apron hanging from a peg in the corner, rushed over to grab it and started tying it around Camry's waist while the blonde pulled her head through the neck strap. 

"Just get through dinner quickly and go change when you're done," Marina said in her ear. Camry's shaking hands pulled her hair free before dropping to press against her thighs, as if that would be enough to quell their trembling. The older woman rubbed the girl's upper arms briskly to generate some heat and settle down her goosebumps. "Okay?" 

"Mhmm," she hummed, still red in the cheeks. She sucked in a deep breath, then let it out in a huff. Good, there was no fog this time. "I think I'm alright now. Thank you, Marina." 

They left the kitchen together and resumed their places at the table. Marina, to Camry's eternal gratitude, waved away the concerned looks of the other adults and feigned total casualness while picking up her fork. Try as she did not to brush up against either of the witches beside her, Camry winced when unexpected contact with Laia caused the younger girl to shiver like someone had trailed light touches up her spine. Despite being one of the last ones to arrive at the dining room, Camry was the first one to leave, and with surprisingly little left on her plate, too.

As soon as she was safe from any curious opal eyes, she sprinted back to her borrowed room and threw on the first dry shirt her blue-tipped fingers found. She swaddled herself in two blankets for good measure, too, and huddled in a ball for a while on her bed. To make matters worse, she was on a bit of a time crunch. After hearing about it nonstop from every girl she had hung out with throughout the day, there was no way she had forgotten about the slumber party that night. 'If I don't get warm again before that, they're so gonna have questions about it.' 

Kids and parents alike soon trickled out of the dining room in pairs and clusters, taking the mess from the table with them. Camry did her best to act nonchalant when she heard the front door open and close. Luck was surely shining down on her that night because all feeling had returned to her limbs almost as soon as AJ and Olivia knocked on her bedroom door. 

"Hey, you ready to party?" Olivia crowed while swinging open the door. Her twin stood in the hallway but grinned in anticipation. 

Camry, on her feet and folding the blankets as neatly as she could, smiled at the two sisters. "Hell yeah I am!" 

"Oh, and by the way?" AJ piped up, and both girls turned to look at her. "We've seen that trick before, and I'm pretty sure we know who did it." 

"Wait, what trick?"  

AJ rolled her eyes up to the ceiling and sighed. "The water glass? At dinner? Ramón thinks it's hilarious to do stupid stuff like that all the time." 

Camry's hand froze on top of the folded blanket draped over her other arm. "I  _knew_ that was too weird to be an accident!" 

"Welcome to the world of having older brothers," Olivia muttered before hooking her arm through Camry's. "C'mon, let's go already!" 

The party ended up in AJ's room, as fate would have it, because there was just enough floor space to accommodate everyone with their blankets and pillows. Now that there were two more girls to add to the roster, it looked as if sleeping arrangements would be a bit of a tighter squeeze than usual. "Okay, as soon as everyone else moves their butts over here, we'll pick our spots and settle in," AJ announced from where she sat cross-legged on her unmade bed. Laia and Ari were next to show, followed by Terese and Trinidad a handful of minutes later. 

"What're we playing first?" Trinidad asked while bouncing up and down, her pillow hugged tight in her lap. "Can we play Truth or Dare?  _Please?_ " 

"I guess so," Olivia agreed. "I hope I have enough left in the bottle for everyone." 

'The bottle? What bottle?' Camry wondered. Leaning into Ari's side was such a habit for her by that point that it was second nature to rest the side of her head on the taller girl's shoulder. Dressed in soft pajamas and looking comfortable as can be, Ari couldn't help but be reminded of the first few nights of their journey into Mexico, before things had taken a turn for the much rougher worse. 

"Ari and Camry haven't had their fortunes read yet," AJ reminded her sisters, who relented with understanding nods. "C'mere, one of you sit in front of me. There's not a lot of room so I'm only gonna do the three-card reading for now." 

Cam and Ari met each other's eye and silently asked the other if they wanted to go first. When Ari gestured forward with a hand, the blonde shrugged and took her place facing opposite to AJ. As their sister shuffled and cut the deck, the other girls crowded in for a front row of the "action." Maybe it was the fact that Camry was just a regular human compared to the rest of them, but something was certainly giving them reason to be intrigued by whatever results the cards gave her. 

Thanks to the suddenly serious atmosphere and the multitude of eyes on her back, Camry felt a storm of flapping wings pick up in her stomach as AJ explained how the reading would work. "This is a standard past-present-future reading. When I lay these out, pick whichever three you want one at a time and set them down in front of you. Don't think too hard about it; just let the right cards call to you."

Camry did as she was told and took a few seconds to pick out each card. It felt entirely random to her, truth be told, since she had no idea what it would feel like for the cards to "call" to her. Even so, she felt good about her choices and confidently set them down on the carpet. AJ fiddled with them, spacing each one out more evenly before reaching for the one on Camry's right. "This is your past card." 

A skeleton on horseback stared back at her through a frame of shiny gold roses. The Roman numerals for 13 were emblazoned at the top, and the upside-down word 'DEATH' all but laughed in her face. Camry felt her stomach lurch and blinked rapidly at the card. " _Uhh_ \--?" she mumbled, her pitch rising at the end of the word. 

"Oh, don't worry," AJ was quick to say. "An upright Death just means change or transition. A transformation of sorts. It can be a really positive card, actually. Think of it as 'out with the old, in with the new.' You weren't dying, I swear." 

All Camry could do was laugh weakly at that and stare intently at the second card, which AJ promptly overturned. "Your present card is the reversed Knight of Wands.  _This_ card is telling me that you're frustrated by a delay of some sort, and that whatever passion project you've got going on right now isn't panning out as quickly as you want it to. It also has a tendency to mean you're acting without thinking things through yet, which could impact any long-term goals you might have when it comes to this project." 

"Huh," Camry said from behind her hand. "Interesting..." 

"Ready for your future card?" AJ flipped it over as soon as Camry nodded. "Ooh, the Ace of Swords. This means that you oughta be encouraged to welcome new ideas. A breakthrough in thought could be up ahead if you stay open-minded and willing to try something you've never considered before."

A beat of silence passed before Camry spoke next. "Well, I was worried about how this was going to go when we pulled Death right outta the gates, but that was way more positive than I expected. Thanks, AJ." 

"No problem. That'll be a thousand pesos."

" _What?_ " she shrieked, and the room erupted in a roar of giggling. The next one up to the plate was Ari, and while in retrospect she wished she had paid more attention to the spectacle, Camry found herself too lost in her own head. AJ's prediction was translated into SSL by Laia, the only sister who hadn't needed to wait longer before learning a new language, and there were definitely some conspiratorial oohs and aaws at what the rest of them heard. 

'Oh my god, of  _course_ I managed to pull the Death card!' Camry griped while hugging her pillow close to her chest. 'She couldn't possibly know the truth just by reading those cards, right?  _Right?_  God, I hope I played that one off cool enough. Fuck, I am so dead. I am  _so. Dead_.'

Soon enough, everyone settled back into their spots and the tarot cards were put back in their box. " _Now_ can we play Truth or Dare?" Trinidad whined. She got a resigned chorus of "okay" from her sisters and immediately rushed out the door to look for something. When she came back, her lips were pursed in frustration. In her fist she clutched a clear flask with a little bit of rosy pink liquid swishing side to side at the bottom. "Aww, I thought there was more in here!"

"We can still play. It just won't last very long," Terese assured her as she took the bottle for herself and popped off the lid. She peered inside and nodded. "Yeah, if we each only drink two drops, we'll still get four turns each." 

"Wait, I'm confused," Ari said and pointed at the bottle. "Why are we drinking that?" 

Laia's hands flicked rapidly through the signs as she spoke in sync. "Haven't you ever played Truth or Dare before? That's a potion that obligates you to do whatever truth or dare you get." 

"That's... not how it's usually played," Camry said quietly. She and Ari shared a brief, fearful glance while Terese divided up the bottle's contents. 

"It's not a true sleepover if nothing exciting happens," Laia shot back with a knowing grin before she accepted her two drops of truth or dare serum. 

With little choice in the matter, Ari and Camry grinned and bore it when it was their turn to drink. After getting a taste of the rosy liquid, Camry made the mistake of wrinkling her nose and sticking her tongue out in an attempt to be funny. All that got her was a bunch of curious stares and an elated gasp from Trinidad. "Uh, what is it?" Cam asked, an eyebrow lifted in confusion. 

"Stick out your tongue again!" Trinidad immediately demanded, and with a start Cam slapped her hand over her mouth. Her iolite eyes were wide as she shook her head back and forth several times. "Alright, then I  _dare_ you to stick your tongue out!"

"Hey, we haven't set up the order yet! Wait your turn!" Laia said with bite to her tone. 

True to form, the serum had already taken effect by then. Grimacing and without moving her hand, Camry stuck her tongue out for a quick second and pulled it back in again without anyone seeing anything. "There, I did it," she said, her voice muffled by her palm. 

"But what's that on your tongue? I didn't get to see it!" Trinidad complained loudly while pointing a finger at her. 

AJ swatted at her sister's extended arm and gave her a sharp look. "Knock it off, Trinidad. I don't need Papá's specialization to tell that it's private." 

"I didn't see anything," Terese grumbled. "What's she talking about?" 

With a sigh, Camry lowered her hand and let it rest in her lap. "My scar... I have a flower on my tongue." 

"You  _do?_ " 

Now everyone's eyes were on her again, and it seemed as if there was little use in trying to hide the truth any longer. Camry stuck her tongue out long enough for everyone to get a good look before retracting it. With her cheeks thoroughly flushed pink for the second time in as many hours, she fixed her gaze on the wall and said nothing. 

"But how did you  _get_ that?" the young Trinidad pressed, which earned her a harsh jab in the ribs from AJ. "Uh,  _ow_."

" _Drop_ it, okay?" she hissed between grit teeth. Was she really the only one who could read the room? 

Awkwardness settled over the atmosphere like smog for all of three seconds before Ariadna yelled out, "Olivia, truth or dare?" 

"Uhh, truth!" 

"What's the grossest thing you've ever eaten in your whole life?" 

In their own individual nests of blankets and pillows, there were tons of folds in the hills and valleys of fabric scattered all over the bedroom floor. That's why when Ari reached a sneaky hand out to hold Camry's and give it a firm squeeze, everyone else was none the wiser. Camry sucked in a shaky breath and squeezed back with less pressure but an equal amount of intent behind it. 

Finally, when the lighthearted mood returned and several girls had already braved gross and/or embarrassing dares for the others' entertainment, the serum ran its course without anyone bringing up the scar again. Apparently Trinidad could take a hint after all, even if it required some painful pokes to get the message across. After watching an old Spanish movie in the front room and raiding the pantry for snacks, the seven girls agreed that they were too tired to stay up any longer. Everyone began filing back down the hallway to AJ's room when Camry felt a hand on her arm and stopped. 

"Hey, I'm sorry about earlier," AJ, looking as guilty as anyone might in this situation, said in a whisper. "She gets really into that game, and I don't think she really understands why some people need to keep their secrets to themselves." 

"I-It's okay," Camry said. "I just... It's not a good story." 

AJ nodded at that. "I figured. Look, I wanna do something for you, okay?"

"Oh, god, you  _really_ don't have to--" 

"Ari was telling me," she pushed on, "about how you said you wanted pink hair but could never dye it. I've got some extra bright pink left over from when I did that a few months ago. Would you want me to dye your hair for you?" 

A war sprang to life behind Camry's eyes at the idea. It was a bloody battle between her persistent humility and the desire to do exactly what her mother had forbidden her to do. 'I don't have to worry about wasting my money... And Mom's not here to stop me...' 

"Am I gonna have to pay you a thousand pesos for it?" she asked, which earned her a smirk from AJ.

"No, not this time. Just don't get all fancy on me with what you want to do, and it's on the house."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boy, this chapter is getting long! Better end it here before I break 5k. 
> 
> Also btw 1000 pesos is roughly 50 dollars according to Google so it's not really as exorbitant a price as it might sound, but that's where the humor for it comes in XD 
> 
> With the new term starting, I sincerely hope I can find the time and energy to write/update, but that's not going to be as set in stone as I'd like. I've regained some of my buffer though, so I can at least put out a new chapter every couple of weeks or so. 
> 
> Please leave your thoughts in the comments and kudos! I always read every single one several times because it brings me such delight to know you guys are enjoying this story. Hopefully it won't be long before I update again, but in the meantime, Birdies, I hope you have an awesome week(s)!


	34. Siesta

 

Before long, morning arrived and the sleepover dispersed after breakfast. When Camry sat up in her makeshift bed, the neon pink ends of her hair flicked outward to reach the edges of her vision. She beamed and combed her fingers through them to admire the inch and a half of new color. As great as it would have been to have completely pink hair all over her head, there hadn't been enough dye in the bottle, so she settled for a band of pink at the ends. 

'If anything, I won't have to cut off too much of my hair if Mom freaks out' she reasoned around midnight while sitting still so AJ could work her magic. After waiting for the dye to set, rinsing it out in blisteringly cold water, and drying off with a hair dryer as quickly as possible, both girls climbed into bed and drifted off. Camry was happy to report that she suffered no nightmares at all and woke up feeling well rested and ready to face the day.

Well, that is, until she actually got to her feet and was startled to realize how heavy her bones felt. No one had replaced her marrow with lead without her noticing, right? Right? 

All she could do was blame it on staying up late as she followed the other girls into the dining room for breakfast. 

Sitting at the table and sipping her glass of milk, Camry suddenly found herself reminded of dinner the night before. Hmm... And where Ari was sitting further down on the other side was also about where Joaquín had been, too... 'Maybe I should try to find him today... and bug him for a while' she thought with a smile she directed into her glass. 

The sleepover was officially over, and with their arms full of blankets and pillows, everyone went back to their houses to get ready for the day. Already dressed in her only pair of jeans and a T-shirt, Camry followed Ari across the compound and chatted with her the whole way to her room. On their way through the hall, she peeked through the open doorway into Joaquín's room and was surprised to find it empty. Even at a quick glance, she could tell that the bed was too neatly made for him to have slept in it the night before. 

"Hey, Ari? Where do you think Joaquín is?" she asked while standing in the doorway of her friend's room. 

Ari tossed her pillow back onto her bed and sat down to take off her shoes. "The library, I bet. Dad's punishing him with studying, so maybe he fell asleep in there." 

"Could you show me where the library is? I don't think they showed me that on the tour." 

"Yeah, I guess so." 

~*~

How many pages had he turned? What time was it? What book was even in his hands at this point? With a pillow supporting his lower back and several stacks of dusty books piled up on the floor around him, Joaquín could safely say he was mired in his punishment. He rubbed both tired eyes with one hand and almost lost his grip on the book standing on his stomach. "Ugh... I can't! I can't read any more history. I can't." 

That book fell to the floor with a bang that echoed through the empty library. Joaquín settled back onto the couch and groaned again, covering his face with both hands as he fought the urge to fall asleep. It was hard to tell what time it was without his phone, and for some unknown reason there were no clocks anywhere on the walls. Sunlight had started streaming in through the windows a little while ago, though, so it was safe to say he had stayed up all night again. 'Whoops.' 

The double doors at the end of the huge room suddenly opened and shut, and in a flash Joaquín snatched a random book off the top of a pile within arm's reach. With that open in front of him and almost drawn up around his ears to hide his tiredness, he waited quietly for the visitor to do whatever they had come to do and leave. Their footsteps were unusual, however, in how quiet they tiptoed through the stacks and came to a stop next to his couch. 

"Qu'est-ce que tu penses~?" 

He lowered the book at the sound of her voice and found himself beaming. With her elbows close together and planted on the back of the couch, her chin rested casually in her palms. The pink ends of her hair were free to hang around her neck in a relatively straight fashion, and she looked to be holding back laughter. "Cam-- Hey! What're you doing in here?"

"I came over to bug you," she said, proud as she could ever be. "But really, what do you think?"

"I love it," he said. "Did AJ do that?" Camry nodded once without lifting her head from her hands. "I had a feeling. You finally got your pink hair!"

"Now the real experiment will be seeing how long I get to keep it." Her eyes zeroed in on the cover of the book in his hands. There it was again: that expression that said she was trying not to laugh. "I, uh, I can see  _you're_ studying hard."

"Huh?" Joaquín looked at the book for all of a split second before his face deadpanned. Of course, in his haste to look like he was doing something productive, he had opened the book upside down without noticing. "Ha ha, very funny." 

She finally stopped holding back her giggles, and they were so contagious in the dull setting that it didn't take long for him to start laughing as well. When they eventually calmed down, Camry wiped at her eye and tipped her head a few degrees to one side. "But seriously, how's it going in solitary?"

"Ugh,  _boring as hell_ ," he moaned. The upside down book fell open on his face for good measure. "I  _hate_ being cooped up like this." 

Camry pursed her lips to one side in pity and reached a hand out to pull the book further down his chest, which freed his eyes to look at her. "I know, but at least the subject's interesting, right? You won't find books on magic in our school library." 

"He's got me reading history books, Cam.  _History_." 

That earned him a wince of sympathy. "Ooh, ouch. Okay, yeah, that majorly sucks." 

Joaquín creaked into sitting upright and tossed the book back where he had found it. "You're telling me. I don't know what I hate more: all the history lessons, or not being able to spend time with anyone while I'm stuck in here."

With her arms braced stiff against the back of the couch, Camry stretched her back with a quiet pop and relaxed back into her former position. "I mean, if it makes you feel any better, you're not missing a whole lot. Everyone's just kinda doing their own thing." A sudden thought ran through her head, but she brushed it aside before she could blurt anything out. What good was it to tell him that everyone was planning on going swimming later that afternoon when he couldn't join the fun himself? 

"Still, it's lonely," he said, pouting ever so slightly. Camry felt her heart seize in her chest, as unexpected a sensation as it was, but decided to ignore it, too. "I'd ask if you wanted to stick around and hang out, too, but if my dad found out I'm sure he'd be mad. Actually, I dunno if you're even supposed to be in here." 

"I came over to bother you, remember?" she said with a cheeky smile. "I can hide or something if anyone comes in." 

A smile threatened to pull the corners of his lips up, try as he did to stop it. "I dunno..." 

Joaquín didn't get the chance to mull it over for much longer. Without warning, the double doors clicked open loud enough to reach their ears, and with a start their wide eyes met. He motioned toward himself for her to hide, which she immediately did by vaulting over the back of the couch and cramming herself into the space where the seat met the back cushions. Even as he knew this wasn't a good place for anyone to hide, there wasn't any time to find a better spot. With few options left, he grabbed another book within arm's reach and pretended to read it-- and don't worry, this time he made sure it was right side up. 

"¿Mijo? ¿Estás aquí?" Ricardo called into the dimly lit library. Joaquín answered in his native tongue as well, and after they exchanged a few sentences that Camry couldn't quite understand, Ricardo left, shutting the doors behind him. When she heard the latch close, the giggles returned in full force, muffled as they were by her face squished between the couch cushion and her best friend's side. 

"That was close," Joaquín breathed before giving her an odd look. "Comfy there, are ya?" 

"Very," she laughed and lifted her head. "I like how warm it is down here."

"Whoa, you  _are_ cold." He held onto her arm for a moment, then let go. He had grabbed her left one, as a matter of fact, and he couldn't help how his gaze was drawn to the 'bracelet' she wore. "Colder than the other night, actually. That thing has some serious side effects, doesn't it." 

"I'm handling it," she tried to say with confidence, but the tiniest pause she took in the middle said otherwise. Camry drew her arm back underneath her chest and hunkered down as far as she could go. "But I think I'm also gonna stay here. Y'know, 'til the coast is clear." 

A low, two-note laugh escaped Joaquín's throat. She was  _not_ being subtle about how cold she actually was. With her bare forearm pressed against where the bottom of his shirt lifted up a little and exposed his side, her skin was that of someone who had taken a tumble in the Canadian mountains. "'Kay. I gotta keep studying, though, so it's not gonna be very exciting." 

"I'm--" Camry tried and failed to bite back a yawn, "--learning to appreciate it when things aren't so exciting." 

'God, he's so warm. Am I really that cold, or is he just some kind of human space heater?' she wondered as she settled in. His left forearm lay across his stomach while her cheek pinned down his upper arm, which left him with only one hand to comfortably balance the book against the bottom of his ribs. As Joaquín fell back into his routine of absorbing the weathered pages, Cam found herself watching him read. 'He reads so fast...'

Not many words passed between them beyond the occasional question about what he was reading or how she was feeling. Barely fifteen minutes had passed before her exhaustion, the absolute comfort she took in her warm surroundings, and the serenity of the library's deserted atmosphere became the exact recipe for a heavy morning nap. Joaquín glanced down at her sleeping face and tried not to laugh; he wouldn't want to wake her up, after all, and it seemed like she could use the extra sleep. 

The same could clearly be said for him, too, which is why no one should be surprised to learn that he followed suit only a handful of minutes later. His book fell open on his stomach with only his hand to hold his place, and subconsciously he eased his bloodless arm out from under Camry to drape it across her back. Her cheek found a new resting place on his chest, and in return she stretched her left arm out to hug him back. It was an impressively peaceful scene, to say the least, as the two cuddled in their sleep. 

At the same time and several rooms over, Ariadna and Ricardo were sitting in his office to continue where they had left their lessons off the day before. She had a  _lot_ to catch up on, and unfortunately she was without the head start her twin had gotten by arriving a month earlier. Today, there was something else Ricardo wanted to share with his eldest daughter, and his excitement was threatening to chip away at his teacher-like persona. 

"Ariadna, I was doing some research into healing magic, and I have some good news," he said. She sufficed to read his lips since he kept his hands flat on the pages of an open book that lay between them. 

"What's that?" she asked. 

"Well, I know that it hasn't been completely easy adapting to being around so many people all the time, and with only a few of your siblings being able to learn sign language right away, it's been a bit overwhelming," Ricardo began. "Trust me, I've been able to sense your emotions ever since we got you back. But I think there's a way we can fix this whole issue once and for all."

She raised an eyebrow at that. "What do you mean?" 

He propped up the book then so she could see what its pages said. There was a very detailed drawing of the inner workings of a human ear, and several notes written around it were highlighted yellow or underlined in pen. "It might take some trial and error, but I think I can fix your hearing!" 

Ari glared at the book and pressed her lips together in a thin line before speaking. "Is this a joke? I don't want my hearing 'fixed.'" To make her point effortlessly clear, she used her fingers to make air quotes around the offending word.

"What do you mean, mija?" Ricardo asked while blinking rapidly. "You-- Why wouldn't you want to be able to hear normally?"

She let out a huffy breath and pointed to her left ear. "Being deaf is a part of who I am, and I don't want to change that. I mean, can you imagine being forced to hear everything around you all the time? That sounds  _exhausting!_ " 

"But, Ariadna, this would be a wonderful thing!" He pointed to the page with more emphasis, as if that could help change her mind. "No more sign language, no more reading lips, no more being unaware of your surroundings-- doesn't that sound great?"

"No, it  _doesn't_ ," she insisted. "I  _like_ being deaf, Dad. I was born this way, and I know how to handle it. I've had my whole life so far to practice!" Ari got to her feet and folded her arms over her chest. "Besides, the only reason I ever had hearing aids at all was because my school required them. Stupid classist gatekeeping... I hate wearing them!"

"Don't worry, this spell won't be anything like a hearing aid. It works more like someone who has trouble seeing wearing contacts instead of glasses," he assured her with a gesture for her to sit back down so they could continue their lesson. "Just think about it, alright? This would be a great advantage for you to have, so don't dismiss it right away." 

"Too late," she muttered before turning toward the door and tossing a halfhearted wave over her shoulder. "I'm tired-- gonna go lie down for a while.  _Too much noise_." 

Ricardo called after her and rose to his feet just in time for the office door to slam shut. Of course, with her back turned to him, Ariadna had effectively ignored him completely. She was well on her way down the hall when he gave up and sat back down in his chair. A hand over his eyes, he groaned deep in his chest and pressed his elbow into the desk. "What the hell was  _that_ all about?" 

'I don't understand why she wouldn't think this is a good thing' he thought, shifting his hand to his forehead so he could stare at the upside-down book in front of him. 'This is a  _great_ thing! Magic fixes so many problems for everyone, so why can't she see this in the same way?'

No matter how he puzzled over the dilemma, he couldn't see a single explanation for any of this. He groaned again and straightened his back. 'I need a second opinion.' 

Much further down the hall, Ariadna wrenched open the library doors and stomped inside. Like a hefty breeze, she blew through the aisles in search of something to take her mind off of the conversation she had just had. 'How can he think I would want that? You can't just ask somebody to change who they are because it doesn't suit your idea of "normal!"' 

Her journey through the stacks took her past a couch situated next to the Spanish and French aisles, where her brother and their friend still snoozed none the wiser. Ari paused her stomping long enough to smirk and raise an eyebrow. 'Well, well, well.  _Someone_ sure is enjoying some light wish fulfillment.' After seeing that neither was going to stir any time soon, she let out a heavy sigh and found it a tiny bit easier to keep her steps a bit quieter. It only took her a little while to find something interesting to read, so once she slid it off the shelf and tucked her legs underneath herself in a nearby armchair, Ari let herself get swallowed by the fading words in front of her. 

Every once in a while she glanced up to check on the other two, though they rarely moved and therefore weren't very entertaining to watch. The only noises to disturb the silence were their gentle, rhythmic breathing and the occasional flipping of a page, all of which didn't bother her in the least. For the first time since she had arrived on the mountain, Ariadna got to enjoy some peace and solitude for longer than roughly half an hour. 

~*~

When Ricardo went looking for her, he didn't find Marina for quite some time. Rather than inside her borrowed house or shooting the breeze with the other tías somewhere else, she turned up on the edge of the property where the grassy lawn fell away into dense forestland. A nearby path was carved into the undergrowth, which inevitably led to the same well where he knew Caesar, Ramón, and Miguel liked to set off fireworks. In any case, Marina had set up a blanket in a shady patch of the prickly grass and was currently absorbed in staring out at the scenery. A Thermos stood upright beside her on the blanket, likely full of hot coffee or tea. 

He caught a clear view of her profile as he walked closer, and with a start he saw just how time had both managed and failed to change her. A life of stress had caused a few thin gray hairs to appear in her dark brown part, but she was still in her mid-thirties and looked it. As relaxed and unbothered as she appeared to be, Ricardo couldn't help but feel like he did when he first met her: intrigued, unsure, and a bit humbled to be in her presence. His footsteps in the grass were enough of an announcement to catch her attention, and she turned her head to give him a gentle smile. 

"What brings you out here, Ricardo?" she asked after offering him a seat on the available space beside her. He sank to his knees and shifted into sitting properly; though he wouldn't want to admit to it while not even forty years old, such acrobatics were not as easy as they used to be. 

"I need to talk to you about our daughter," he sighed. "I told her about how I might be able to use magic to fix her hearing, but she got mad at me and stormed out of my office." 

Halfway through his explanation, Marina had to grapple very hard with the urge to roll her eyes. When Ricardo was done, she pivoted to face him better. "I should have said something earlier. Listen to me very carefully, Ricky. Your daughter used to struggle with her identity for a long time because of her deafness. It broke my heart to hear how she was teased all the time at school. It's why I sent her to the other high school across town, even though it's so much more expensive." 

"Yes, I understand that, but why would she react that way when I offered to make all of that go away?" he asked. Resting his forearm on his knee, he ran his hand through his hair in exasperation. "I'm attuned to emotions more than anything else, but I don't think I can understand hers at all." 

Marina reached a sympathetic hand out and rested it on his shoulder for a moment. "What did she tell you when you were talking about it?" 

"Well," he murmured as he thought back, "I think she told me that being able to hear all the time sounded exhausting. But then she complained about hearing aids and I assured her the spell wouldn't work like one at all. She left after that." 

She nodded throughout his recount and pressed her lips into a thin line. After seeing Ari do the same only a little while ago, he was suddenly startled by the clear resemblance between her and her mother. "One of the things I love most about Ari is her ability to stand up for herself. After a while, she learned how to love herself and love  _being_ herself, deafness and all. Asking her to change that would be like asking her to bleach her skin." 

Ricardo's eyes widened and then narrowed in time with his realization and subsequent contemplation. "So... what you're saying is I need to stop thinking about her deafness as a disability?" 

"Exactly," Marina said. "If you had one arm and decided that all other people should only have one arm, would you go up to someone with two and insist they cut one off?" 

She took a long sip from her Thermos to let him process the metaphor, then laughed quietly to herself. "You know, you're lucky she's not still in the habit of doing more than telling people off for saying what you did. I once had to ground her for two weeks after she punched a girl for being rude about the way she talked. Not that the other little bitch didn't deserve it, but Ari needed to learn how to handle these kinds of things peacefully." 

The swear admittedly caught him off guard, but with a smile Ricardo remembered that Marina had always had the habit of being a bit crass when she was totally at ease. Just the memories of seeing shock register on her face when she swore without meaning to were enough to bring a chuckle out of him, too. "It sounds like a little warning was an important lesson for that other girl." 

"If you can call loosening her two front teeth "little," then I agree completely." Marina took another long sip in stoic silence, fully aware of how Ricardo openly stared. "It's true. Our daughter really knows how to throw a punch." 

"I'll know better than to underestimate her from now on," he said. "Thank you, Marina. I think I know how to handle this from here." 

Having said that, she half-expected him to get up and leave, perhaps to return to his office or go find Ariadna right away. Instead, he leaned further back on the blanket and craned his neck to look at the cloudless sky bordered by the green treetops. The craggy spire of the mountain's peak was just in view as well and framed the deep ocean of blue nicely. Now it was Marina's turn to take notice of how Ricardo had changed, but to her surprise she had no trouble seeing the person she hazily remembered growing so fond of. Those feelings had never blossomed into anything romantic, so she simply smiled and offered him a drink from her Thermos. He accepted with a kind smile and continued to sit in the shade, where both were content to soak in the peacefulness of the warm summer day.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this was like a breath of fresh air. I hope you enjoyed the peaceful feelings I felt, too! In any case, the next few chapters are going to be significantly less peaceful, so enjoy it while you can >:3c 
> 
> I look forward to reading your comments! Kudos are always appreciated, too, and stay tuned for the next chapter!


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